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LETTERS 


ON 


19 ? 


THE STUDY AND USE 


HISTORY; 

BY THE LATE 

RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY ST. JOHN, 
LORD VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 

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A NEW EDITION, CORRECTED. 




PARIS. 


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PRINTED FOR THEOPHILUS BARROIS, JUNIOR, 
BOOKSELLER, N.° 5 , QUAY VOLTAIRE. 

M DCCC VIII, 

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THE CONTENTS. 


I 


LETTER I. 

Of the study of history. . .. P a g e 1 

LETTER II. 

Concerning the true us # 5 and advantages of it. p . 9 

LETTER III. 

l. An objection against the utility of history removed.— 
2 . The false and true aims of these who study it.—3. Of 
the history of the first ages, with reflections on the state of 
ancient history, profane and sacred. p. 3j 

LETTER IV. 

1 . That there is in history sufficient authenticity to render 
it useful, notwithstanding all objections to the contrary.— 
2 . Of the method and due restrictions to be observed in the 
study of it. p. 85 

LETTER V.. 

i. The great use of history, properly so called, as distin¬ 
guished from the writings of mere annalists and anti¬ 
quaries.— 2 . Greek and Roman historians.—3. Some idea 
of a complete history.-^-4. Further cautions to he observed 
in this study, and the regulation of it according to the 
different professions and situations of men : above all, 
the use to he made of it by divines, and by those who are 
called to the service of their country. p, io5 









CONTENTS. 


ir 


LETTER VI. 

From what period modern history is peculiarly useful to 
the service of our country, viz. from the end of the 
fifteenth century to the present. The division of this 
into three particular periods, in order to a sketch of the 
history and state of Europe from that time.. p» i3p 

LETTER VII. 

A sketch of the state and history of Europe, from llie 
Pyrenean treaty in i 65 g to the year 1688. p. ijo 

LETTER VIII. 

^ •' 1 » * ''» JT : • I 

The same subject continued, from the year 1688 . p. 221 


LETTER I. 

A Plan for a general history of Europe.. 

LETTER II. 

Of the true use of retirement and study 


P . 339 


p. 34/ 


Reflections upon exile 


P . 371 









\ 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 



LETTER I. 

* ? 

Chantelou in Touraine, Nov. 6,1735* ; 

; ’ . * j s, •• v • • S .i i * ■ L j / 

MY LORD. 

[ )$ i . . • > • 1 * 1 t y.t * 

I HATE considered formerly, with a good 
deal of attention, the subject on which you 
command me to communicate my thoughts to 
you; and I practised in those days, as much 
as business and pleasure allowed me time to 1 
do, the rules that seemed to me necessary to 
be observed in the study of history. They 
were very different from those which writers on 
the same subject had recommended, and which 
are commonly practised : but I confess to your 
lordship, that this neither gave me then, nor 
has given me since, any distrust of them. I do 
not affect singularity : on the contrary, I thinlc 

f 1 f 

that a due deference is to be paid to received 
opinions, and that a due compliance with receiyed 


2 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


customs is to be ; paid ; though both the one and 
the other should be, what they often are, absurd 
or ridiculous. But this servitude is outward only, 
and abridges in no sort the liberty of private 
judgment. The obligations of submitting to it, 
likewise, even outwardly, extend no farther 
than to those opinions and customs whith can¬ 
not be opposed; or from which we cannot deviate 
without doing hurt, or giving offence to society. 
In all these cases, our speculations ought to be 
free ; in all other cases, our practice may be so. 
Without any regard, therefore, to the opinion 
and practice even of the learned world, I am 
very willing to tell you mine. But as it is hard 
to recover a thread of thought long ago laid aside, 
and impossible to prove some things, and explain 
others, without the assistance of many books 
which; I have not here, your lordship must be 
content with such an imperfect sketch as I am 
able to send you in this letter. 

The motives that carry men to the study of 
history are different: some intend, if such as 
they may be said to study, nothing more than 
amusement; and read the life of Aristides or 
Phocion, of Epaminondas or Scipio, of Alexander 
or Caesar, j ust as they play a game at cards, or as 
they would read the story of the Seven Cham¬ 
pions. 

Others there are, whose motive to this study 
is nothing better, and who have the further dis- 




STUDY OF HISTORY. 5 

advantage of becoming a nuisance very often to 
society, in proportion to the progress they make. 
The former do not improve their reading to any 
good purpose: the latter pervert it to a very bad 
one, and grow in impertinence as they increase 
in learning. I think I have known most of the 
first kind in England, and most of the last in 
France. The persons I mean are those who read 
to talk, to shine in conversation, and to impose 
in company; who, having few ideas to vend of 
their own growth, store their minds with crude 
unruminated facts and sentences, and hope to 
supply, from bare memory, the want of imagi¬ 
nation and judgment. 

But these are in the two lowest forms.—The 
next I shall mention are in one a little higher; 
in the form of those who grow neither wiser nor 
better by study themselves, but who enable 
others to study with greater ease, and to pur¬ 
poses more useful; who make fair copies of foul 
manuscripts, give the signification of hard words, 
and take a great deal of other grammatical pains. 
The obligation to these men would be great 
indeed, if they were in general able to do any 
thing better, and submitted to this drudgery for 
the sake of the public, as some of them, it must 
be owned with gratitude, have done; but not 
later, I think, than about the time of the resur¬ 
rection of letters. When works of importance 
are pressing, generals themselves may take up the 

i? 2 



4 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

* 

pick-axe and the spade; but in tlie ordinary 
course of things, when that pressing necessity is 
over, such tools are left in the hands destined to 
use thm—the hands of common soldiers and 
peasants. I approve, therefore, very much the 
devotion of a studious man at Christ-Chnrch, 
who was overheard in his oratory entering into 
a detail with God, as devout persons are apt to 
do, and, amongst other particular thanksgivings, 
acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing 
the Avorld with makers of dictionaries !—These 
men court fame, as well as their betters, by such 
means as God has given them to acquire it; and 
Littleton exerted all the genius he had, when he 
made a dictionary, though Stephens did nof. 
They deserve encouragement, however, whilst 
they continue to compile, and neither affect wit 
nor presume to reason. 

There is a fourth class, of much less use than 
these, but of much greater name : men of the 
first rank in learning, and to whom the whole 
tribe of scholars bow with reverence. A man 
must be as indifferent as I am to common censure 
or approbation, to avow a thorough contempt for 
the whole business of these learned lives; for all 
the researches into antiquity, for all the systems 
of chronology and history, that we owe to the 
immense labors of a Scaliger, a Bocliart, a Peta- 
vius, an Usher, and even a Marsham. The same 
materials are common to them all; but these 



study of history. 


5 


materials are few, and there is a moral impossi¬ 
bility that they should ever have more. They 
have combined these into every form that can be 
given to them; they have supposed, they have 
guessed, they have joined disjointed passages of 
different authors, and broken traditions of uncer¬ 
tain originals, of various people, and of centuries 
remote from one another as well as from ours. 
In short, that they might, leave no liberty un- 
taken, even a wild fantastical similitude oi sounds 
has served to prop up a system. As the materials 
they have are few, so are the very best, and such 
as pass for authentic, extremely precarious 5 as 
some of these learned persons themselves confess. 

Julius Africanus, Eusebius, and George the 
monk., opened the principal sources of all this 
science ; but they corrupted the waters. Their 
point of view was to make profane history and 
chronology agree with sacred 3 though the lattei 
chronology is very far from being established 
with the clearness and certainty necessary to 
make it a rule. For this purpose, the ancient 
monuments that these writers conveyed to poste¬ 
rity, were digested by them according to the 
system they were to maintain 3 and none of these 
monuments were delivered down in their original 
form and genuine purity. The Dynasties of 
Manetho, for instance, are broken to pieces by 
Eusebius 3 and such fragments of them as suited 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


his design, are struck into his work. "We have, 
we know, no more of them. The Codex Alex- 
andrinus we owe to George the monk : we have 
no other authority for it : and one cannot see 
without amazement such a man as Sir John 
Marsham undervaluing this authority in one 
page, and building his system upon it in the 
next. He seems, even, by the lightness of his 
expressions, if I remember right (for it is long 
since I looked into his canon), not to be much 
concerned what foundation his system had, so 
he showed his skill in forming one, and in 
reducing the immense antiquity of the Egyp¬ 
tians within the limits of the Hebraic calcula¬ 
tion. In short, my lord, all these systems are 
so many enchanted castles • they appear to be 
something, they are nothing but appearances: 
like them, too, dissolve the charm, and they 
vanish from the sight. To dissolve the charm, 
we must begin at the beginning of them ; the 
expression may be odd, but it is significant. 
We must examine scrupulously and indif¬ 
ferently the foundations on which they lean; 

i 

and when we find these either faintly probable 
or grosly improbable, it would be foolish to 
expect any thing better in the superstructure. 
This science is one of those that are “ a limine 
salutandce .” To do thus much may be necessary, 
that grave authority may not impose on our 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 7 

ignorance : to do more, would be to assist this 
very authority in imposing upon us. I liad 
rather take the Darius whom Alexander con¬ 
quered, for the son of Hystaspes, and make as 
many anachronisms as a Jewish chronologer, 
than sacrifice half my life to collect all tho 
learned lumber that fills the head of an anti¬ 
quary. 



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STUDY OP HISTORY. 


9 



LETTER II. 


Concerning the true use and advantages of it. 


LET me say something of history in general, 
before I descend into the consideration of parti¬ 
cular parts of it, or of the various methods of 
study, or of the different views of those that 
apply themselves to it, as I had begun to do in 
my former letter. 

The love of history seems inseparable from 
human nature, because it seems inseparable from 
self-love. The same principle in this instance 
carries us forward and backward, to future and 
to past ages. We imagine that the things which 
affect us, must affect posterity; this sentiment 
runs through mankind, from Caesar down to the; 
parish clerk in Pope’s Miscellany. We are fond 
of preserving, as far as it is in our frail power, 
the memory of our own adventures, of those of 
our own time, and of those that preceded it. 
Rude heaps of stone have been raised, and ruder 
hymns have been composed,, for this purpose, by 
nations who had not yet the use of arts and 
letters. To go no further back, the triumphs of 


30 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


Odin were celebrated in runic songs, and the 
feats of our British ancestors were recorded in 
those of their bards. The savages of America 
have the same custom at this day; and long his¬ 
torical ballads of their huntings and their wars 
are sung at all their festivals. There is no need 
of saying how this passion grows, among civil¬ 
ized nations, in proportion to the means of gra¬ 
tifying it: but let us observe, that the same prin¬ 
ciple of nature directs us as strongly, and more 
generally as well as more early, to indulge our 
own curiosity, instead of preparing to gratify that 
of others. The child hearkens with delight to 
the tales of his nurse : he learns to read, and he 
devours with eagerness fabulous legends and 
novels; in riper years he applies himself to his¬ 
tory, or to that which he takes for history, to 
authorised romance : and, even in age, the desire 
of knowing what has happened to other men, 
yields to the desire alone of relating what has 
happened to ourselves. Thus history, true or 
false, speaks to our passions always. What pity 
is it, my lord, that even the best should speak to 
our understandings so seldom? That it does so, 
we have none to blame but ourselves : nature 
has done her part. She has opened this study to 
ever}^ man who can read and think; and what 
she has made the most agreeable, reason can 
make the most useful, application of our minds. 
But if We consult our reason, we shall be far 


STUDY OP HISTORY. 


21 


from following the examples of our fellow-crea¬ 
tures, in this as in most other cases, who are so 
proud of being rational. We shall neither read 
to soothe our indolence, nor to gratify our 
vanity : as little shall we content ourselves to 
drudge like grammarians and critics, that others 
may be able to study with greater ease and profit, 
like philosophers and statesmen: as little shall 
we affect the slender merit of becoming great 
scholars at the expence of groping all our lives 
in the dark mazes of antiquity. All these mis¬ 
take the true drift of study, and the true use of 
history. Nature gave us curiosity to excite the 
industry of our minds, but she never intended 
it should be made the principal, much less the 
sole, object of their application. The true and 
proper object of this application is a constant 
improvement in private and in public virtue. 
An application to any study, that tends neither 
directly nor indirectly to make us better men 
and better citizens, is at best but a specious and 
ingenious sort of idleness, to use an expression 
of Tillotson; and the knowledge we acquire by 
it is a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more. 
This creditable kind of ignorance is, in my opi¬ 
nion, the whole benefit which the generality of 
men, even of the most learned, reap from the 
study of history; and yet the study of history 
seems to me, of all other, the most proper to train 
us up to private and public virtue. 


12 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

Your lordship may very well be ready by this 
time, and after so much bold censure on my part, 
to ask me, what then is the true use of history? 
in what respects it may serve to make us better 
and wiser? and what method is to be pursued in 
the study of it, for attaining these great ends? 
I will answer you by quoting what I have read 
somewhere or other, in Dionysius Halicarn, I 
think, that history is philosophy teaching by 
examples. We need but to cast our eyes on 
the world, and we shall see the daily force ol 
example : we need but to turn them inward, 
and we shall soon discover why example has 
this force. “ Pciuci prudential says Tacitus, 
u honesia ab deterioribus , utiLia ab noxiis discer- 
7unit: plures aliorum eventis docentur Such is 
the imperfection of human understanding, such 
the frail temper of our minds, that abstract or 
general propositions, though ever so true, appear 
obscure or doubtful to us very often, till they 
are explained by examples, and that the wisest 
lessons in favor of virtue go but a little way to 
convince the judgment and determine the will, 
unless they are enforced by the same means, 
and we are obliged to apply to ourselves what 
we see happen to other men. Instructions by 
precept have the further disadvantage of coming 
on the authority of others, and frequently re¬ 
quire a long deduction of reasoning. “ Homines 
amplius ocnlis s quam auribus : credunt : long urn 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


It) 


iter est per prcecepta > breve et efficctx per exem¬ 
plar Ihe reason of tliis judgment, wliicli I 
quote from one of Seneca’s epistles in confirma¬ 
tion of my own opinion, rests, I think, on this; 
that when examples are pointed out to us, there 
is a kind of appeal, with which we are flattered, 
made to our senses as well as to our understand¬ 
ings. The instruction comes then upon our own 
authority ; we frame the precept after our own 
experience, and yield to fact when we resist 
speculation. 

But this is not the only advantage of in¬ 
struction by example ; for example appeals not 
to our understanding alone, but to our passions 
likewise. Example assuages these or animates 
them ; sets passion on the side of judgment, 
and makes the whole man of a piece; which 
is more than the strongest reasoning, and the 
clearest demonstration can do : and thus forming 
habits by repetition, example secures the ob¬ 
servance of those precepts which example insi¬ 
nuated. Is it not Pliny, my lord, who says, 
that the gentlest, he should have added, the most 
effectual way of commanding, is by example? 
“ Mitius jubetur exemplar The harshest orders 
are softened by example, and tyranny itself be¬ 
comes persuasive. W hat pity it is that so few 
princes have learned this way of commanding? 
But again :—the force of examples is not confined 
to those alone, that pass immediately under our 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


i4 

sight ; the examples, that memory suggests, have 
the same effect in their degree, and an habit of 
recalling them will soon produce the habit of 
imitating them. 

In the same epistle, from whence I cited 
a passage just now, Seneca says, that Cleanthes 
had never become so perfect a copy of Zeno, 
if he had not passed his life with him ; that 
Plato, Aristotle, and the other philosophers of 
that school, profited more by the example than 
by the discourse of Socrates. (But here, by 
the way, Seneca mistook; for Socrates died two 
years, according to some, and four years, accord¬ 
ing to others, before the birth of Aristotle: and 
his mistake might come from the inaccuracy 
of those who collected for him; as Erasmus 
observes, after Quintilian, in his judgment on 
Seneca.) But be this, which was scarce worth a 
parenthesis, as it will; he adds, that Metrodorus, 
Hermacus, and Polyaenus, men of great note, 
were formed by living under the same roof with 
Epicurus, not by frequenting his school. These 
are instances of the force of immediate example. 
But your lordship knows that the citizens of 
Rome placed the images of their ancestors in the 
vestibules of their houses; so that, whenever 
they went in or out, these venerable bustos met 
their eyes, and recalled the glorious actions of 
the dead, to fire the living, to excite them to 
initate, and even to emulate, their great fore- 


STUDY OP HISTORY. l5 

fathers. The success answered the design: the 
virtue of one generation was transfused, by the 
magic of example, into several, and a spirit of 
heroism was maintained through many ages of 
that commonwealth. Now these are so many 
instances of the force of remote example; and 
from all these instances we may conclude, that 
examples of both kinds are necessary. 
y/The school of example, my lord, is the world, 
and the masters of this school are history and 
experience. I am far from contending that the 
former is preferable to the latter; I think upon 
the whole otherwise : but this I say, that the 
former is absolutely necessary to prepare us for 
the latter, and to accompany us whilst we are 
under the discipline of the latter; that is, through 
the whole course of our lives. No doubt some 
few men may be quoted, to whom nature gave 
what art and industry can give to no man. But 
such examples will prove nothing against me, 
because I admit that the study of history, without 
experience, is insufficient; but assert, that expe¬ 
rience itself is so without genius. Genius is 
preferable to the other two, but I would wish 
to find the three together; for how great soever 
a genius may be, and how much soever he may 
acquire new light and heat, as he proceeds in his 
rapid course, certain it is that he will never shine 
with the full lustre, nor shed the full influence 
he is capable of, unless to his own experience he 





i6 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


adds the experience of other men and other ages. 
Genius, without the improvement, at least, of 
experience, is what comets once were thought 
to be; a blazing meteor, irregular in his course, 
and dangerous in his approach; of no use to any 
system, and able to destroy any. Mere sons of 
earth, if they have experience without any know¬ 
ledge of the history of the world, are but half 
scholars in the science of mankind; and if they 
are conversant in history without experience, 
they are worse than ignorant; they are pedants, 
always incapable, sometimes meddling and pre¬ 
suming. The man who has all three, is an honor 
to his country, and a public blessing; and such, 
I trust, your lordship will be in this century, as 
your great-grandfather* was in the last. 

I have insisted a little the longer on this head, 
and have made these distinctions the rather, 
because though I attribute a great deal more than 
many will be ready to allow to the study of his¬ 
tory, yet I would not willingly even seem to fall 
into the ridicule of ascribing to it such extrava¬ 
gant effects, as several have done, from Tully 
down to Casauhon^ La Mothe Le Yayer, and 
other modern pedants. When Tully informs 
us, in the second book of his Tusculan disputa^- 
tioiis, that the first Scipio Africanus had always 
in his hands the works of Xenophon, he advances 


* The Earl of Clarendon* 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


X 7 

nothing but what is probable and reasonable. 
To say nothing of the Retreat of the Ten Thou¬ 
sand, nor of other parts of Xenophon’s writings, 
the images of virtue, represented in that ad¬ 
mirable picture the Cyropaedia, were proper to 
entertain a soul that was fraught with virtue, 
and Cyrus was worthy to be imitated by Scipio. 
So Selim emulated Caesar, whose Commentaries 
were translated for his use, against the customs 
of the Turks: so Caesar emulated Alexander, 
and Alexander, Achilles. There is nothing ridi¬ 
culous here, except the use that is made of this 
passage by those who quote it. But what the 
same Tully says, in the fourth book of his aca¬ 
demical disputations, concerning Lucullus, seems 
to me very extraordinary. u In Asiam factus 
imperalor venit; cum esset Roma profectus rei 
militaris ruclis ” (one would be ready to ascribe 
so sudden a change, and so vast an improvement, 
to nothing less than knowledge infused by inspi¬ 
ration, if we were not assured in the same place 
that they were effected by very natural means, 
by such as it in every man’s power to employ) 
u partim percontando a peritis partnn in rebus 
gestis legendis .” Lucullus, according to this 
account, verified the reproach on the Roman 
nobility, which Sallust puts into the mouth of 
Marius. But as I discover the passion of Marius, 
and his prejudices to the patricians, in one case, 







I 


38 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

so I discover, methinks, the cunning of Tully, 
and his partiality to himself, in the other, Lu- 
cullus, after he had been chosen consul, obtained 
by intrigue the government of Cilicia, and so 
put himself into a situation of commanding the 
Roman army against Mithridates; Tully had the 
same government afterwards, and though he had 
no Mithridates, nor any other enemy of conse¬ 
quence, opposed to him ; though all his military 
feats consisted in surprising and pillaging a parcel 
of Highlanders and wild Cilicians; yet he as¬ 
sumed the airs of a conqueror, and described his 
actions in so pompous a stile, that the account 
becomes burlesque. He laughs, indeed, in one 
of his letters to Atticus, at his generalship: but 
if we turn to those he wrote toCoelius Rufus and 
to Cato upon this occasion, or to those wherein 

he expresses to Atticus his resentment against 

• * 

Cato, for n^t proposing in his favor the honors 
usually decreed to conquerors, we may see how 
vanity turned his head, and how impudently he 
insisted on obtaining a triumph. Is it any strain 
now to suppose, that he meant to insinuate, in 
the passage I have quoted about Lucullus, that 
the difference between him and the former go¬ 
vernor of Cilicia, even in military merit, arose 
from the different conjuncture alone ; and that 
Lucullus could not have done in Cilicia, at that 
time, more than he himself did ? Cicero had read 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


1 9 

and questioned at least as much as Lucullus, and 
would therefore have appeared as great a captain, 
if he had had as great a prince as Mithridates to 
encounter. But the truth is, that Lucullus was 
made a great captain by theory, or the study of 
history alone, no more than Ferdinand of Spain 
and Alphonsus of Naples were cured of desperate 
distempers by reading Livy and Quintus Curtius: 
a silly tale, which Bod in, Amyot, and others have 
picked up and propagated. Lucullus had served 
in his youth against the Marsi, probably in other 
wars, and Sylla took early notice of him; he 
went into the east with this general, and had a 
great share in his confidence. He commanded 

O 

in several expeditions: it was he who restored 
the Colophonians to their liberty, and who pu¬ 
nished the revolt of the people of Mytelene. 
Thus we see that Lucullus was formed by expe¬ 
rience as well as study, and by an experience 
gained in those very countries, where he ga¬ 
thered so many laurels afterwards, in fighting 
against the same enemy. The late duke of Marl¬ 
borough never read Xenophon, most certainly, 
nor the relation perhaps of any modern wars; 
but he served in his youth under M. de Turenne, 
and I have heard that he was taken notice of ill 
those early days by that great man. He after¬ 
wards commanded in an expedition to Ireland, 
served a campaign or two, if I mistake not, under 
king William in Flanders; and, besides these 


20 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


occasions, had none of gaining experience in 
war, till lie came to the head of our armies in 
1702, and triumphed not over Asiatic troops, 
hut over the veteran armies of France. The 
Roman had on his side genius and experience 
cultivated by study; the Briton had genius im¬ 
proved by experience, and no more. The first, 
therefore, is not an example of what study can 
do alone; but the latter is an example ot’ what 
genius and experience can do without study. 
They can do much, to be sure, when the first 
is given in a superior degree: but such examples 
are very rare; and when they happen, it will be 
still true, that they would have had fewer ble¬ 
mishes, and would have come nearer to the 
perfection of private and public virtue, in all 
the arts of peace and atchievements of war, if 
the views of such men had been enlarged, and 
their sentiments ennobled, by acquiring that cast 
of thought, and that temper of mind, which will 
grow up and become habitual in every man who 
applies himself early to the study of history, as 
to the study of philosophy, with the intention 
of being wiser and better, without the affectation 
of being more learned. 

The temper of the mind is formed, and a cer¬ 
tain turn given to our ways of thinking; in a 
word, the seeds of that moral character which 
cannot wholly alter the natural character, but 
may correct the evil and improve the good that 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 21 

is in it, or do the very contrary, are sown be¬ 
times, and much sooner than is commonly sup¬ 
posed. It is equally certain, that we shall gather 
or not gather experience, be the better or the 
worse for this experience when we come into 
the world and mingle amongst mankind, accord¬ 
ing to the temper of mind and the turn of thought 
that we have acquired beforehand, and bring 
along with us. They will tincture all our future 
acquisitions; so that the very same experience 
which secures the judgment of one man or ex¬ 
cites him to virtue, shall lead another into error, 
or plunge him into vice. From hence it follows, 
that the study of history has in this respect a 
double advantage. If experience alone can make 
us perfect in our parts, experience cannot begin 
to teach them till we are actually on the stage: 
whereas, by a previous application to this study,, 
we conn them over, at least, before we appear 
there: we are not quite unprepared, we learn 
our parts sooner, and we learn them better. 

Let me explain what I mean by an example. 
There is scarce any folly or vice more epidemical 
among the sons of men than that ridiculous 
and hurtful vanity by which the people of each 
country are apt to prefer themselves to those of 
every oilier; and to make their own customs, and 
manners, and opinions, the standards of right and 
wrong, of true and false. The Chinese mandarins 
were strangely surprised, and almost incredulous, 






582 STUDY OF H[STORY. 

when the Jesuits showed them how small a figure 
their empire made in the general map of the 
world. The Samojedes wondered much at the 
czar of Moscovy for not living among them ; and 
the Hottentot who returned from Europe, stripped 
himself naked as soon as he came home, put on his 
bracelets of guts and garbage, and grew stinking 
and lousy as fast as he could. Now nothing can 
contribute more to prevent us from being tainted 
with this vanity, than to accustom ourselves 
early to contemplate the different nations of the 
earth in that vast map which history spreads 
before us, in their rise and their fait, in their 
barbarous and civilised states, in the likeness and 
unlikeness of them all to one another, and of 
each to itself. By frequently renewing this pros¬ 
pect to the mind, the Mexican with his cap and 
coat of feather, sacrificing a human victim to 
his god, will not appear more savage to our 
eyes, than the Spaniard with a hat on his head, 
and a gonilla round his neck, sacrificing whole 
nations to his ambition, his avarice, and even 
the wantonness of his cruelty. I might show, 
by a multitude of other examples, how history 
prepares us for experience, and guides us in it: 
and many of these would be both curious and 
important. I might, likewise, bring several other 
instances, wherein history serves to purge the 
mind of those national partialities and prejudices 
that we are apt to contract in our education, and 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 23 

that experience for the most part rather confirms 
than removes; because it is for the most part 
confined, like our education. But I apprehend 
growing too prolix, and shall, therefore, conclude 
this head by observing, that though an early and 
proper application to the study of history will 
contribute extremely to keep our minds free 
from a ridiculous partiality in favor of our own 
country, and a vicious prejudice against others, 
yet the same study will create in us a preference 
of affection to our own country. There is a story 
told of Abgarus. He brought several beasts taken 
in different places to Ptome, they say, and let 
them loose before Augustus : every beast ran 
immediately to that part of the Circus, where a 
parcel of earth taken from his native soil had 
been laid. u Credat Judceus Apella .” This tale 
might pass on Josephus; for in him, I believe, 
I read it: but surely the love of our country is 
a lesson of reason, not an institution of nature- 
Education and habit, obligation and interest^ 
attach us to it, not instinct. It is, however, so 
necessary to be cultivated, and the prosperity of 
all societies, as well as the grandeur of some, 
depends upon it so much, that orators by their 
eloquence, and poets by their enthusiasm, have 
endeavoured to work up this precept of morality 
into a principle of passion. But the examples 
which we find in history, improved by the lively 
descriptions and the just applauses or censures 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


^4 

of historians, will have a much better and more 
permanent effect, than declamation, or song, or 
the dry ethics of mere philosophy. In fine, to 
converse with historians is to keep good company : 
many of them were excellent men, and those 
who were not such, have taken care, however, 
to appear such in their writings. It must be, 
therefore, of great use to prepare ourselves by 
this conversation for that of the world, and to 
receive our first impressions, and to acquire our 
first habits, in a scene where images of virtue 
and vice are continually represented to us in the 
colors that belong properly to them, before we 
enter on another scene, where virtue and vice are 
too often confounded, and wliat belongs to one 
is ascribed to the other. 

Besides the advantage of beginning our acquaint¬ 
ance with mankind sooner, and of bringing with 
us into the world, and the business of it, such 
a cast of thought and such a temper of mind, 
as will enable us to make a better use of our 
experience, there is this further advantage in 
the study of history; that the improvement we 
make by it extends to more objects, and is made 
at the expence of other men; whereas that 
improvement which is the effect of our own 
experience, is confined to fewer objects, and is 
made at our own expence. To state the account 
fairly, therefore, between those two improve- 
inents ? though the latter be the more valuable, 











STUDY ‘OF HISTORY. 


yet allowance being made on one side for the 
much greater number of examples that history 
presents to us, and deduction being made on tlie 
other of the price we often pay for our expe¬ 
rience, the value of the former will rise in pro¬ 
portion. “ I have recorded these things/' says 
Polybius, after giving an account of the defeat of 
Regulus, u that they who read these Commentaries 
may be rendered better by them: for all men 
have two ways of improvement; one arising from 
their own experience, and one from the experience 
of others. Evidentior quidem ilia est_, quce per 
propria ducit infortunia ; at tutior ilia, quae per 
alienaT I use Casaubon’s translation. Polybius 
goes on, and concludes, “ that since tlie hrst of 
of these ways exposes us to great labor and 
peril, whilst the second works the same good 
effect, and is attended by no evil circumstance, 
every one ought to take for granted^ that the 
study of history is the best school where he can 
learn how to conduct himself in all the situations 
of life.” Regulus had seen at Rome many ex¬ 
amples of magnanimity, of frugality, of the 
contempt of riches and of other virtues; and 
these virtues he practised. But he had not learned, 
nor had opportunity of learning another lesson, 
which the examples recorded in history inculcate 
frequently, the lesson of moderation. An insa¬ 
tiable thirst of military fame, an unconfined 
ambition of extending their empire, an extra- 


s6 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


\ 


vagant confidence in their own courage and force y 
an insolent contempt of their enemies, and an 
impetuous overbearing spirit with which they 
pursued all their enterprises, composed in his days 
the distinguishing character of a Roman. What¬ 
ever the senate and people resolved, to the mem¬ 
bers of that commonwealth appeared both prac¬ 
ticable and just. IN either difficulties nor dangers 
could check them; and their sages had not yet 
discovered, that virtues in excess degenerate 
into vices. Notwithstanding the beautiful rant 
which Horace puts into his mouth, I make no 
doubt that Regulus learned at Carthage those 
lessons of moderation which he had not learned 
at Rome; but he learned them by experience, 
and the fruits of this experience came too late, 
and cost too dear; for they cost the total defeat 
of the Roman army r , the prolongation of a cala¬ 
mitous war which might have been finished by 
a glorious peace, the loss of liberty to thousands 
of Roman citizens, and to Regulus himself the 
loss of life in the midst of torments, if we are 
entirely to credit what is perhaps exaggeration in 
the Roman authors. 

There is another advantage worthy our ob¬ 
servation, that belongs to the study of history ; 
and that 1 shall mention here, not only because 
of the importance of it, but because it leads 
me immediately to speak of the nature of the 
improvement we ought to have in our view, and 


i 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 27 

of the method in which it seems to me that this 
improvement ought to be pursued: two parti¬ 
culars from which your lordship may think 
perhaps that I digress too long. The advantage 
I mean consists in this; that the examples which 
history presents to us, both of men and of events, 
are generally complete ; the whole example is 
before us, and consequently the whole lesson, 
or sometimes the various lessons, which phi¬ 
losophy proposes to teach us by this example. 
For first, as to men, we see them at their whole 
length in history, and we see them generally 
there through a medium less partial at least than 
that of experience ; for I imagine, that a whig or 
a tory, whilst those parties subsisted, would have 
condemned in Saturninus the spirit of faction 
which he applauded in his own tribunes, and 
would have applauded in Drusus the spirit of 
moderation which he despised in those of the 
contrary party, and which he suspected and hated, 
in those of his own party. The villain who has 
imposed on mankind by his power or cunning, 
and whom experience could not unmask for a 
time, is unmasked at length ; and the honest 
man, who has been misunderstood or delamed, 
is justified before his story ends : or if this does 
not happen, if the villain dies with his mask on, 
in the midst of applause, and honor, and wealth* 
and power, and if the honest man dies under the 
same load of calumny and disgrace under which 




STUDY OF HISTORY. 


lie lived, driven perhaps into exile, and exposed 
to want; yet we see historical justice executed, 
the name of one branded with infamy, and that 
of the other celebrated with panegyric to suc¬ 
ceeding ages. u Prcecipuum munus annalium 
reoi\ ne virtutes si leant ur / utque pravis dictis 
factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit .” 
Thus, according to Tacitus, and according to 
truth, from which his judgments seldom deviate, 
the principal duty of history is to erect a tribunal, 
like that among the Egyptians, mentioned by 
Diodorus Siculus, where men and princes them¬ 
selves were tried, and condemned or acquitted, 
after their deaths; where those who had not been 
punished for their crimes, and those who had 
not been honored for their virtues, received a 
just retribution. The sentence is pronounced 
in one case, as it was in the other, too late to 
correct or recompense; but it is pronounced in 
time to render these examples of general in¬ 
struction to mankind. Thus Cicero, that I may 
quote one instance out of thousands, and that 
I may do justice to the general character of that 
great man, whose particular failing I have censured 
so freely; Cicero, I say, was abandoned by 
Octavius, and massacred by Anthony. But let 
any man read this fragment of Arellius Fuscus, 
and choose which he would wish to have been, 
the orator or the triumvir? w Quoad humanum 
genus incolume inanserit , quamdiu usus Uteris y 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 


2 9 

honor summce eloquentice pretium erit , quamdiu 
rerum natura aut fortuna steterit , ctut memorici 
durciverit , admirabile posteris vigebis ingeniurn , 
et uno proscriptus seculo , proscribes Antonium 
omnibus 

Thus again, as to events that stand recorded 
in history ; we see them all, we see them as they 
followed one another, or as they produced one 
another, causes or effects, immediate or remote. 
We are cast back, as it were, into former ages: 
we live with the men who lived before us, and. 
we inhabit countries that we never saw. Place 
is enlarged, and time prolonged, in this manner ; 
so that the man who applies himself early to the? 
study of history, may acquire in a few years, and 
before he sets his foot abroad in the world, not 
only a more extended knowledge of mankind, 
but the experience of more centuries than any of 
the patriarchs saw. The events we are witnesses 
of, in the course of the longest life, appear to us 
very often original, unprepared, single, and un¬ 
relative, if I may use such an expression for 
want of a better in English; in French I would 
say isoles : they appear such very often, are 
called accidents, and looked on as the effects of 
chance; a word, by the way, which is in constant 
use, and has frequently no determinate meaning. 
We get over the present difficulty, we improve 
the momentary advantage, as well as we can, and 
we look no farther. Experience can carry us no 


oo 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


farther; for experience can go a very* little way 
back in discovering causes; and effects are not 
the objects of experience till they happen : from 
hence many errors in judgment, and, by conse¬ 
quence, in conduct, necessarily arise. And here 
too lies the difference we are speaking of between 
history and experience : the advantage on the 
side of the former is double. In ancient history, 
as we have said already, the examples are complete 
which are incomplete in the course of experience : 
the beginning, the progression, and the end 
appear, not of particular reigns, much less of 
particular enterprises, or systems of policy alone; 
•but. of governments, of nations, of empires, and 
of all the various systems that have succeeded 
one another in the course of their duration. In 
modern history, the examples may be, and some¬ 
times are, incomplete; but they have this ad¬ 
vantage when they are so, that they serve to 
render complete the examples of our own time. 
Experience is doubly defective; we are born too 
late to see the beginning, and we die too soon to 
see the eud. of many things. History supplies 
both these defects: modern history shows the 
causes, when experience presents the effects 
alone: and ancient history enables us to guess 
at the effects, when experience presents the causes 
alone. Let me explain my meaning by two 
examples of these kinds; one past, the other 
actually present. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 51 

When the revolution of one thousand six hun¬ 
dred and eighty-eight happened, few men then 
alive, I suppose, went farther in their search after 
the causes of it, than the extravagant attempt of 
king James against the religion and liberty of his 
people. His former conduct, and the passages of 
king Charles the second’s reign might rankle still 
at the hearts of some men, but could not be set 
to account among the causes of his deposition; 
since he had succeeded, notwithstanding them, 
peaceably to the throne: and the nation in ge¬ 
neral, even many of those who would have ex¬ 
cluded him from it, were desirous, or at least 
willing, that he should continue in it. Now this 
example, thus stated, affords, no doubt, much 
good instruction to the kings and people of Bri¬ 
tain : but this instruction is not entire, because 
the example thus stated, and confined to the 
experience of that age, is imperfect. King James’s 
mal-administration rendered a revolution neces¬ 
sary and practicable • but his mal-administration, 
as well as all his preceding conduct, was caused 
by his bigot attachment to popery, and to the 
principles of arbitrary government, from which 
no warning could divert him. His bigot attach¬ 
ment to these was caused by the exile of the 
royal family; this exile was caused by the usur¬ 
pation of Cromwell, and Cromwell’s usurpation 
was the effect of a former rebellion, begun not 
without reason on account of liberty, but with- 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


out any valid pretence on account of religion. 
During this exile, our princes caught the taint 
of popery and foreign politics; we made them 
unfit to govern us, and after that were forced to 
recal them, that they might rescue us out of 
anarchy. It was necessary, therefore, your lord- 
ship sees, at the revolution, and it is more so 
now, to go back in history, at least as far as I 
have mentioned, and perhaps farther, even to 
the beginning of king James the first’s reign, to 
render this event a complete example, and to 
develope all the wise, honest, and salutary pre¬ 
cepts, with which it is pregnant, both to king 
and subject. 

The other example shall be taken from what 
has succeeded the revolution. Few men at that 
time looked forward enough to foresee the ne¬ 
cessary consequences of the new constitution of 
the revenue, that was soon afterwards formed, 
nor of the method of funding that immediately 
took place ; which, absurd as they are, have con¬ 
tinued ever since, till it is become scarce possible 
to alter them. Few people, I say, foresaw how 
the creation of funds, and the multiplication of 
taxes, would increase yearly the power of the 
crown, and bring our liberties, by a natural and 
necessary progression, into more real though less 
apparent danger, than they were in before the 
revolution. The excessive ill husbandry prac¬ 
tised from the very beginning of king William’s 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 55 

reign, and which laid the foundations of all we 
feel and all we fear, was not the effect of igno¬ 
rance, mistake, or what we call chance, but of 
design and scheme in those who had the sway at 
that time. I am not so uncharitable, however 
as to believe that they intended to bring upon 
their country all the mischiefs that we, who 
came after them, experience and apprehend. No, 
they saw the measures they took singly and un- 
relatively, or relatively alone to some immediate 
object. The notion ol attaching men to the new 
government, by tempting them to embark their 
fortunes on the same bottom, was a reason of 
stale to some; the notion of creating a new, that 
is, a monied interest, in opposition to the landed 
interest, or as a balance to it, and of acquiring a 
superior influence in the city of London, at least 
by the establishment of great corporations, was 
a reason of party to others: and I make no doubt 
that the opportunity of amassing immense estates 
by the management of funds, by trafficking in 
paper, and by all the arts of jobbing, was a reason 
ol private interest to those who supported and 
improved this scheme of iniquity, if not to those 
who devised it. They looked no farther : nay, 
we who came after them, and have long tasted* 
the bitter fruits ol the corruption they planted, 
were far from taking such an alarm at our dis¬ 
tress and our danger as they deserved, till the 
most remote and fatal effect of causes, laid by 


54 ' STUDY OF HISTORY. 

the last generation, was very near becoming an 
object of experience in this. Your lordship, I 
am sure, sees at once how much, a due reflection 
on the passages of former times, as they stand 
recorded in the history of our own and of other 
countries, would have deterred a free people 
from trusting the sole management of so great a 
revenue, and the sole nomination of those legions 
of officers’ employed in it, to their chief magis¬ 
trate. There remained, indeed, no pretence for 
doing so, when once a salary was settled on the 
prince, and. the public revenue was no longer in 
any sense his revenue, nor the public expence 
his expence. Give me leave to add, that it 
would have been, and would be still, more 
dec'ent with regard to the prince, and less re¬ 
pugnant if not more conformable, to the prin¬ 
ciples and practice too of our government, to 
take this power and influence from the prince, 
or to share*it with him; than to exclude men 
from the privilege of representing their fellow- 
subjects who would choose them in parliament, 
purely because they are employed and trusted 
by the prince. 

Your lordship sees not only how much a due 
reflection upon the experience of other ages and 
countries would have pointed out national cor¬ 
ruption, as the natural and necessary conse¬ 
quence of investing the crown with the manage¬ 
ment of so great a revenue; hut also the loss of 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 55 

liberty, as tlie natural and necessary consequence 
of national corruption. 

These two examples explain sufficiently what 
they are intended to explain. It only remains, 
therefore, on this head, to observe the difference 
between the two manners in which history 
supplies the defects of our own experience. It 
shows us the causes as in fact they were laid, 
with their immediate effects, and it enables us to 
guess at future events. It can do no more, in the 
nature of things. My lord Bacon, in his second 
book of the Advancement of Learning, having in 
his mind, I suppose, what Philo and Josephus 
asserted of Moses, affirms divine history to have 
this prerogative, that the narration may be before 
the fact as well as after. But since the ages of 
prophesy, as well as miracles, are past, we must 
content ourselves to guess at what will be, by 
what has been : we have no other means in our 
power, and history furnishes us with these. How 
we are to improve and apply these means, as well 
as how we are to acquire them, shall be deduced 
more particularly in another letter. 


' 


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V 


STUDY OF HISTORY, 


57 - 

LETTER III. 


I. An objection against the utility of history removed* 

• ; : ' ’ ’ ■ 

II. The false and true aims of those who study it. 

III. Of the history of the first ages, with reflections on the 
state of ancient history, profane and sacred. 


WERE these letters to fall into the hands of 
some ingenious persons who adorn the age we 
live in, your lordship’s correspondent would 
he joked upon for his project of improving men 
in virtue and wisdom by the study of history. 
The general characters of men, it would be said., 
are determined by their natural constitutions^ 
as their particular actions are by immediate 
objects. Many very conversant in history would 
be cited, who have proved ill men, or bad poli¬ 
ticians y and a long roll would be produced 
of others who have arrived at a great pitch of 
private and public virtue, without any assistance 
of this kind. Something has been said already 
to anticipate this objection \ but, since I have 




STUDY OF HISTORY. 


58 

lieard several persons affirm such propositions 
with great confidence, a loud laugh, or a silent 
sneer at the pedants who presumed to think 
otherwise, I will spend a few paragraphs, with 
your lordship’s leave, to show that such affirma¬ 
tions, for to affirm amongst these fine men is to 
reason, either prove too much or prove nothing. 

If our general characters were determined abso¬ 
lutely, as they are certainly infiuenced, by our 
constitutions, and if our particular actions were 
so by immediate objects, all instruction by pre¬ 
cept, as well as example, and all endeavours to 
form the moral character by education, would 
be unnecessary. Even the little care that is 
taken, and surely it is impossible to take less, 
in the training up our youth, would be too 
much. But the truth is widely different from 
this representation of it; for what is vice, and 
what is virtue? I speak of them in a large and 
philosophical sense. The former is, I think, no 
more than the excess, abuse, and misapplication 
of appetites, desires and passions, natural and 
innocent, nay useful and necessary. The latter 
consists in the moderation and government, 
in the use and application of these appetites, 
desires and passions, according to the rules of 
reason, and therefore, often in opposition to their 
own blind impulse. 

What now is education? that part, that prin¬ 
cipal and most neglected part of it, I mean, which 


STUDY or HISTORY, 


5 9 

fends to form the moral character? It is, I think, 
an institution designed to lead men from their 

G « 

tender years, by precept and example, by argu¬ 
ment and authority, to the practice, and to the 
habit of practising these rules. The stronger our 
appetites, desires, and passions are, the harder 
indeed, is the task of education ; but when the 
efforts of education are proportioned to this 
strength, although our keenest appetites and 
desires, and our ruling passions cannot be re¬ 
duced to a quiet and uniform submission, yet 
are not their excesses assuaged, are not their 
abuses and misapplications, in some degree, 
diverted or checked? Though the pilot cannot lay 
the storm, cannot he carry the ship, by his 
art, better through it, and often prevent the 
wreck that would always happen without him? 
If Alexander, who loved wine and was naturally 
choleric, had been bred under the severity 
of Roman discipline, it is probable lie would 
neither have made a bonfire of Persepolis for 
liis whore, nor have killed his friend. II Scipio, 
who was naturally given to women, for which 
anecdote w r e have, i i I mistake not, the autho¬ 
rity of Polybius, as well as some verses ot 
Naevius preserved by A. Gellius, had been edu¬ 
cated by Olympias at the court ol Philip, it 
is improbable that he would have restored the 
beautiful Spaniard. In.short, if the renowned 
Socrates had not corrected nature by art, this 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


4o 

first apostle of the Gentiles liatl been a very 
profligate fellow, by his own confession; for he 
was inclined to all the vices Zopyrus imputed 
to him, as they said, on the observation of his 
physionomy. 

With him, therefore, who denies the effects 
of education, it would he in vain to dispute; 
and with him who admits them, there can he 
no dispute concerning that share which I ascribe 
to the study of history, in forming our moral 
characters, and making us better men. The very 
persons who pretend that inclinations cannot he 
restrained, nor habits corrected, against our na¬ 
tural bent, would be the first, perhaps, to prove in 
certain cases the contrary. A fortune at court, 
or the favors of a lady, have prevailed on 
many to conceal, and they could not conceal 
without restraining, which is one step towards 
correcting, the vices they were by nature ad¬ 
dicted to the most. Shall we imagine now, that 
the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice, 
the charms of a bright and lasting reputation, the 
terror of being delivered over as criminals to all 
posterity, the real benefit arising from a con¬ 
scientious dicharge of the duty we owe to others, 
which benefit fortune can neither hinder nor 
take away, and the reasonableness of conforming 
ourselves to the designs of God manifested in 
the constitution of the human nature; shall we 
imagine, 1 say, that all these are not able to 


STUDY OF HI STOTT. 


4l 

acquire the same power over those who are 
continually called upon to a contemplation of 
them, and they who apply themselves to the 
study oi history, are so called upon, as other 
motives, mean and sordid in comparison of these, 
can usurp on other men? 

II. That the study of history, far from making 
us wiser, and more useful citizens, as well as 
better men, may be of no advantage whatsoever; 
that it may serve to render us mere antiquaries 
and scholars, or that it may help to make us 
forward coxcombs, and prating pedants, I have 
already allowed. But this is not the fault of 
history; and to convince us that it is not, we 
need only contrast the true use of history with 
the use that is made of it by such men as these. 
W e ought always to keep in mind, that history 
is philosophy teaching by examples how to 
conduct ourselves in all the situations of private 
and public life; that therefore we must apply 
ourselves to it in a philosophical spirit and 
manner; that we must rise from particular to 
general knowledge, and that we must fit our¬ 
selves for the society and business of mankind, 
by accustoming our minds to reflect and medi¬ 
tate on the characters we find described, and 
the course of events we find related there. Par¬ 
ticular examples may be of use sometimes in 
particular cases, but the application of them is 
dangerous ; it must be done with the utmost 


42 STUDY OP HISTORY. 

t 

utmost circumspection, or it will be seldom done 
with success. And yet one would think that this 
was the principal use of the study of history, 
by what has been written on the subject. I know 
not whether Machiavel himself is quite free from 
defect on this account : he seems to carry the 
use and application of particular examples some¬ 
times too far. Marius and Catulus passed the 
Alps, met and defeated the Cimbri beyond the 
frontiers of Italy. Is it safe to conclude from 
hence, that whenever one people is invaded by 
' another, the invaded ought to meet and fight 
the invaders at a distance from their frontiers? 
Machiavel’s countryman, Guicciardin, was aware 
of the danger that might arise from such an 
application of examples. Peter of Medicis had 
involved himself in great difficulties when those 
wars and calamities began which Lewis Sforza 
first drew and entailed on Italy, by flattering 
the ambition of Charles the eighth, in order to 
gratify his own, and calling the French into that 
country. Peter owed his distress to his folly, 
in departing from the general tenor of conduct 
his father Laurence had held, and hoped to 
relieve himself by imitating his father’s example 
in one particular instance. At a lime when the 
wars with the pope and kingof Naples had reduced 
Laurence to circumstances of great danger, he 
took the resolution of going to Ferdinand, and 
of treating in person with that prince. The reso- 


STUDY OF HTSTOttY. 43 

lution appears in liistory imprudent and almost 
desperate : were we informed of the secret rea¬ 
sons on which this great man acted, it would 
appear very possibly a wise and safe measure. 
It succeeded, and Laurence brought back with 
him public peace, and private security. As soon 
as the French troops entered the dominions of 
Florence, Peter was struck with a panic terror, 
went to Charles the eighth, put the port of Leg - 
horn, the fortresses of Pisa, and all the keys of 
the country, into this prince’s hands ; whereby 
he disarmed the Florentine commonwealth, and 
ruined himself. He was deprived of his authority, 
and driven out of the city, by the just indig¬ 
nation of the magistrates and people; and in the 
treaty which they made afterwards with the king 
of France, it was stipulated, that Peter should not 
remain within a hundred miles of the state, nor 
his brothers within the same distance of the city 
of Florence. On this occasion Guicciardin ob¬ 
serves how dangerous it is to govern ourselves 
by particular examples; since, to have the same 
success, we must have the same prudence and 
the same fortune; and since the example must 
not only answer the case before us in general, 
but in every minute circumstance. This is the 
sense of that admirable historian, and these are 
his words:— u e senza clubbio molto pericoloso il 
u governarsi con gV esempiy se non concorrono, 
u non solo in generate > ma in tutti i particolari, 


44 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


u le medesime ragioni j se le cose non sono rego— 
a late con la medesima prudenza, e se oltre a 
u tutti li altri fondamenti, non v > hci la parte sua 
iC la medesima for tuna. ” An observation that 
Boiieaa makes, ancl a rule he lays down in speak¬ 
ing of translations, will properly find their place 
here, and serve to explain still better what I 
would establish. 66 To translate servilely into 
u modern language an ancient author, phrase by 
<c phrase and word by word, is preposterous : 
a nothing can be more unlike the original than 
u such a copy. It is not to show, it is to dis- 
“ guise the author; and he who has known him 
“ only in this dress, would not know him in 
a his own. A good writer, instead of taking 
u this inglorious and unprofitable task upon him,. 
“ will jouster contre Voriginal, rather imitate 
a than translate, and rather emulate than imitate: 
u he will transfuse the sense and spirit of the 
u original into his own work, and will endeavour 
a to write as the ancient author would have 
“ wrote, had he written in the same language. ^ 
Now, to improve by examples is to improve by 
imitation : we must catch the spirit if we can, 
and conform ourselves to the reason of them ; 
but we must not affect to translate servilely into 
our conduct, if your lordship will allow me the 
expression, the particular conduct of those good 
and great men, whose images history sets before 
iis. Codrus and the Decii devoted themselves ta 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 45 

death : one, because an oracle bad foretold that 
the army whose general was killed, would be 
victorious; the others, in compliance with a su¬ 
perstition that bore great analogy to a ceremony 
practised in the old Egyptian church, and added 
afterwards, as many others of the same origin 
were, to the ritual of the Israelites. These are 
examples of great magnanimity, to be sure, and 
of magnanimity employed in the most worthy 
cause. In the early days of the Athenian and 
Roman government, when the credit of oracles 
and all kinds of superstition prevailed, when 
heaven was piously thought to delight in blood, 
and even human blood was shed under wild 
notions of atonement, propitiation, purgation, 
expiation and satisfaction, they who set such 
examples as these acted a heroical and a rational 
part too. But if a general should act the same 
part now, and, in order to secure bis victory, 
get killed as fast as he could, he might pass for 
a hero, but, I am sure, he would pass for a 
madman. Even these examples, however, are of 
use : they excite us at least to venture our lives 
freely in the service of our country, by pro¬ 
posing to our imitation men who devoted them¬ 
selves to certain death in the service oi theirs. 
They show us what a turn of imagination can 
operate, and how the greatest trifle, nay the great¬ 
est absurdity, dressed up in the solemn arts of 
religion, can carry ardour and confidence, or the 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


46 

contrary sentiments, into the breasts of thou¬ 
sands. 

There are certain general principles, and rules 
of life and conduct, which always must Ire true, 
because they are conformable to the invariable 
nature of things. He who studies history as he 
would study philosophy, will soon distinguish 
and collect them, and by doing so will soon form 
to himself a general system of ethics and politics 
on the surest foundations, on the trial of these 
principles and rules in all ages, and on the confir¬ 
mation of them by universal experience. I said, 
he will distinguish them; for once more I must 
gay, that as to particular modes of actions and 
measures of con duct, which the customs of dif¬ 
ferent countries,the manners of different ages, and 
the circumstances of different conjunctures, have 
appropriated, as it were, it is always ridiculous, 
or imprudent and dangerous to employ them. But 
this is not all: by contemplating the vast variety 
of particular characters and events; by examining 
the strange combinations of causes, different, re¬ 
mote, and seemingly opposite, that often concur 
in producing one effect, and the surprising fer¬ 
tility of one single and uniform cause in the pro¬ 
ducing of a multitude of effects as different, as re¬ 
mote, and seemingly as opposite : by tracing care¬ 
fully, as carefully as if the subject he considers 
were of personal and immediate concern to him, 
all the minute, and sometimes scarce perceivable 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


47 

circumstances, either in the characters of actors, 
or in the course of actions, that history enables 
him to trace, and according to which the success 
of affairs, even the greatest, is mostly determined; 
by these, and such methods as these, for I might 
descend into a much greater detail, a man of parts 
may improve the study of history to its proper 
and principal use; he may sharpen the penetration, 
fix the attention of his mind, and strengthen his 
judgment; he may acquire the faculty and the 
habit of discerning quicker and looking farther, 
and of exerting that flexibility and steadiness, 
which are necessary to be joined in the conduct 
of all affairs, that depend on the concurrence or 
opposition of other men. 

Mr. Locke, I think, recommends the study of 
geometry even to those who have no design of 
being geometricians, and he gives a reason for it, 
that may be applied to the present case. Such 
persons may forget every problem that has been 
proposed, and every solution that they or others 
have given; but the habit of pursuing long trains 
of ideas will remain with them, and they will ap¬ 
pear through the mazes of sophism, and discover 
a latent truth, where persons who have not this 
habit will never find it. 

In this manner, the study of history will pre¬ 
pare us for action and observation. History is the 
ancient author: experience is the modern lan¬ 
guage. We form our taste on the first; we trans- 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


48 

late the sense and reason, we transfuse the spirit 
and force, but we imitate only the particular 
graces of the original; we imitate them according 
to the idiom of our own tongue ; that is, we sub¬ 
stitute often equivalents in the lieu of them, and 
are far from affecting to copy them servilely. To 
conclude, as experience is conversant about the 
present, and the present enables us to guess at 
the future, so history is conversant about the past, 
and by knowing the things that have been, we 
become better able to judge of the things that are. 

This use, my lord, which I make the proper 
and principal use of the study of history, is not 
insisted on by those who have wrote concerning 
the method to be followed in this study; and since 
we propose different ends, we mustof course take 
different ways. Few of their treatises have fallen 
into my hands: one, the method of Bodin, a man 
famous in his time, 1 remember to have read. 
I took it up with much expectation many years 
ago; I went through it, and remained extremely 
disappointed. He might have given almost any 
other title to his book, as properly as that which 
stands before it. There are not many pages in it 
that relate any more to his subject than a tedious 
fifth chapter, wherein he accounts for the charac¬ 
ters of nations according to their positions on the 
globe, and according to the influence of the stars; 
and assures his reader, that nothing can be more 
necessary than such a disquisition, “ ad univer- 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


4 9 

t: sam historiarum eognitionem , et incorruptum 
“ earum judicium .” In his method we are to take 
first a general view of universal history and 
chronology, in short abstracts, and then to study 
all particular histories and systems. Seneca speaks 
of men who spend their whole lives in learning 
how to act in life, u dum vitce instrumenta 
“ conquiruntP I doubt that this method of Bodin 
would conduct us in the same, or as bad a way; 
would leave us no time for action, or would make 
ns unfit for it. A huge common place-book, 
wherein all the remarkable sayings and facts 
that we find in history are to be registered, may 
enable a man to talk or write like Bodin, but will 
never make him a better man, nor enable him to 
promote, like an useful citizen, the security, the 
peace, the welfare, or the grandeur of the com¬ 
munity to which he belongs. I shall proceed, 
therefore, to speak of a method that leads to such 
purposes as these directly and certainly, without 
any regard to the methods that have been pre¬ 
scribed by others. 

I think, then, we must be on our guard against 
this very affectation of learning, and this very 
wantonness of curiosity, which the examples and 
precepts we commonly meet with are calculated 
to flatter and indulge. We must neither dwell 
too long in the dark, nor wander about till we lose 
our way in the light. We are too apt tb carry 
systems of philosophy beyond all our ideas, and 

E 


5o 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


systems of history beyond all our memorials. 
The philosopher begins with reason, and ends 
with imagination. The historian inverts this 
order: he begins without memorials, and he some¬ 
times ends with them. This silly custom is so 
prevalent among men of letters who apply them¬ 
selves to the study of history, and has so much 
prejudice and so much authority on the side of it, 
that your lordship must give me leave to speak a 
little more particularly and plainly than I have 
done, in favor of common sense, against an ab¬ 
surdity which is almost sanctified. 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 



REFLECTIONS 


ON THE 

STATE OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 

THE nature of man, and tlie constant course of 
human affairs, render it impossible that the first 
ages of any new nation which forms itself, should 
afFord authentic materials for history. We have 
none such concerning the originals of any of those 
nations that actually subsist. Shall we expect to 
find them concerning the originals of nations dis¬ 
persed, or extinguished, two or three thousand 
years ago ? If a thread of dark and uncertain tra¬ 
ditions, therefore, is made, as it commonly is, 
the introduction to history, we should touch if 
lightly, and run swiftly over it, far from insisting 
on it, either as authors or readers. Such intro¬ 
ductions are at best no more than fanciful preludes, 
that try the instruments, and precede the concert. 
He must be void of judgment and taste, one would 
think, who can take the first for true history, or 
the last for true harmony. And yet so it has 
heen, and so it is, not in Germany and Holland 
alone, but in Italy, in France, and in England, 




5l 


STUDY OF HISTORY, 


where genius has abounded, and taste lias been 
long refined. Oiir great scholars have dealt in 
fables, at least as much as our poets, with this 
difference to the disadvantage of the former, to 
whom I may apply the remark as justly as Seneca 
applied it to the dialecticians :—“ Tristiiis inepti 
u sunt. Illi ex professo lasciviunt; hi agere 
“ seipsos aliquicl existimant Learned men, in 
learned and inquisitive ages, who possessed many 
advantages that we have not, and among others 
that of being placed so many centuries nearer 
the original truths that are the objects of so much 
laborious search, despaired of finding them, and 
gave fair warning to posterity, if posterity would 
have taken it. The ancient geographers, as 
Plutarch says in the life of Theseus, when they 
laid down in their maps the little extent of sea 
and land that was known to them, left great 
spaces void. In some of these spaces they wrote, 
Here are sandy desarts, in others, Here are im~ 
passsable marshes> Here is a chain of inhospitable 
mountains , or Here is a frozen ocean . Just so, 
both he and other historians, when they related 
fabulous originals, were not wanting to set out 
the bounds beyond which there was neither 
history nor chronology. Censorinus has pre¬ 
served the distinction of three eras established by 
Varro. This learned Roman antiquary did not 
determine whether the first period had any begin¬ 
ning, but fixed the end of it at the first; that is. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


5o 

according to him, the Ogygian, deluge; which he 
placed, I think, some centuries backwarder than 
Julius Africanus thought lit to place it afterwards. 
To this era of absolute darkness he supposed that 
a kind of twilight succeeded^, from the Ogygian 
deluge to the Olympic era, and this he called the 
fabulous age. From this vulgar era, when Co- 
raebus was crowned victor, and long after the 
true era when these games were instituted by 
Iphitus, the Greeks pretend to he able to digest 
their history with some order, clearness, and cer¬ 
tainty : Yarro, therefore, looked on it as the break 
of day, or the beginning of the historical age. He 
might do so the rather, perhaps, because he in¬ 
cluded by it the date he likewise fixed, or, upon 
recollection, that the elder Cato had fixed, of the 
foundation of Rome within the period from which 
he supposed that historical truth was to be found. 
But yet most certain it is, that the history and 
chronology of the ages that follow, are as con¬ 
fused and uncertain as the history and chronology 
of those which immediately precede this era. 







54 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 




II. THE STATE OF ANCIENT PROFANE HISTORY. 


The Greeks did not begin to write in prose 
till Pherecides of Syros introduced the custom, 
and Cadmus Milesius was tlieir first historian. 
Now these men flourished long after the true, or 
even the vulgar Olympic era; for Josephus affirms, 
and in this he has great probability on his side, 
that Cadmus Milesius and Acusilaus Argivus, in 
a word, the oldest historians in Greece, were very 
little more ancient than the expedition of the 
Persians against the Greeks. As several centu¬ 
ries passed between the Olympic era and these 
first historians, there passed, likewise, several . 
more between these and the first Greek chrono- 
logers. Timoeus, about the time of Ptolemy 
Philadelphia, aiid Eratosthenes about that of 
Ptolemy Evergetes, seem first to have digested 
the events recorded by them, according to the 
olympiads. Precedent writers mentioned some¬ 
times the olympiads; but this rule of reckoning 
was not brought into established use sooner. 
The rule could not serve to render history more 
clear and certain, till it was followed : it was not 
followed till about five hundred years after the 
Olympic era. There remains, therefore, no pre¬ 
tence to place the beginning of the historical age 



STUDY OF HISTORY, 


55 

so high as Yarro placed it, by five hundred 
years. 

Hellanicus, indeed, and others pretended to 
give the originals of cities and governments, and 
to deduce their narrations from great antiquity. 
Their works are lost • but we can judge how in¬ 
considerable the loss is, by the writings of that 
age which remain, and by the report of those 
who had seen the others. For instance ; Hero¬ 
dotus was contemporary with Hellanicus. Hero¬ 
dotus was inquisitive enough in «all conscience, 
and proposed to publish all he could learn of the 
antiquities of the lonians, Lydians, Phrygians, 
Egyptians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians ; 
that is, of almost all the nations who were known 
in his time to exist. If he wrote Assyrians, we 
have them not ; but we are assured that this 
word was used proverbially to signify fabulous 
legends, soon after bis time, and when the mode 
of publishing such relations and histories pre¬ 
vailed among the Greeks. 

In the nine books we have, he goes back, in¬ 
deed, almost to the olmypic era, without taking 
notice of it, however ; but lie goes back only to 
tell an old woman’s tale, of a king who lost his 
crown for showing his wife naked to his favorite; 
and from Candaules and Gyges he hastens, or 
rather lie takes a great leap, down to Cyrus. 

Something like a thread of history of the Medes 
and then of the Persians, to the flight of Xerxes, 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


56 

which happened in his own time, is carried on. 
The events of his own time are related with an 
air of history. But all accounts of the Greeks 
as well as the Persians, which precede these* 
and all the accounts which he gives occasionally 
of other nations, were drawn up most manifestly 
on broken, perplexed, and doubtful scraps of 
tradition. He had neither original records nor 
any authentic memorials to guide him ; and yet 
these are the sole foundations of true history. 
Herodotus flourished, I think, little more than 
half a century, and Xenophon little more than 
a whole century, after the death of Cyrus ; and 
yet how various and repugnant are the relations 
made by these two historians, of the birth, life,, 
and death of this prince ! If most histories had 
come down from these ages to ours, the uncer¬ 
tainty and inutility of them all would be but 
the more manifest. We should find that Acusi- 
laus rejected the traditions of Hesiod ; that Hel- 
lanicus contradicted Acusilaus; that Epliorus 
accused Hellanicus; that Timoeus accused Eplio- 
rus ; and all posterior writers Timoeus. This is 
the report of Josephus. But in order to show* 
the ignorance and falshood of all those writers 
through whom the traditions of profane antiquity 
came to the Greeks, I will quote to your Lord- 
ship a much better authority than that of Jose¬ 
phus; the authority of one who had no preju¬ 
dice to bias him, no particular cause to defend, 


STUDY OP HISTORY. 


57 

nor system of ancient history to establish, and all 
the helps as well as talents necessary to make 
him a competent judge. The man I mean is 
Strabo. 

Speaking of the Massagelae, in his eleventh 
book, he writes to this effect: that no author had 
given a true account of them, though several had 
wrote of the war that Cyrus waged against them; 
and that historians had found as little credit 
in what they had related concerning the affairs 
of the Persians, Medes, and Syrians; that this 
was due to their folly : for, observing that those 
who wrote fables professedly were held in esteem, 
these men imagined they should render their 
writings more agreeable, if, under the appearance 
and pretence of true history, they related what 
they had neither seen nor heard from persons 
able to give them true information; and that ac¬ 
cordingly, their only aim had been to dress up 
pleasing and marvellous relations : that one may 
better give credit to Hesiod and Homer, when 
they talk of their heroes, nay, even to dramatic 
poets, than to Ctesias, Herodotus, Hellanicus, 
and their followers : that it is not safe to give 
credit even to the greatest part of the historians 
who wrote concerning Alexander; since they, 
too, encouraged by the greater reputation of this 
conqueror, by the distance to which he carried 
his arms, and by the difficulty of disproving 
what they said of actions performed in regions so 


58 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


remote, were apt to deceive : that, indeed, when 
the Roman empire on one side, and the Parthian 
on the other, came to extend themselves, the 
truth of things grew to be better known. 

You see, my lord, not only how late profane 
history began to be wrote by the Greeks, but how 
much later it began to be wrote with any regard 
to truth * and, consequently, what wretched ma¬ 
terials the learned men, who arose after the age 
of Alexander, had to employ when they at¬ 
tempted to form systems of ancient history and 
chronology. We have some remains of that labo¬ 
rious compiler Diodorus Siculus, but do we find 
in him any thread of ancient history, I mean that 
which passed for ancient in his time ? What 
complaints, on the contrary, does he not make of 
former historians ? how frankly does he confess 
the little and uncertain light he had to follow in 
his researches ? Yet Diodorus, as well as Plu¬ 
tarch and others, had not only the older Greek 
historians, but the more modern antiquaries, 
who pretended to have searched into the records 
and registers of nations, even at that time re¬ 
nowned for their antiquity. Berosus, for instance> 
and Manetho, one a Babylonian and the other an 
Egyptian priest, had published the antiquities of 
their countries in the time of the Ptolemies. Be¬ 
rosus pretended to give the history of four hun¬ 
dred and eighty years. Pliny, if I remember 
right, for I say this on memory., speaks to this 


STUDY OP HISTORY. 


% 

effect in the sixth book of his Natural History ; 
and if it was so, these years were probably years 
of Nabonassar. Manetho began his history, God 
knows when, from the progress of Isis, or some 
other as well ascertained period. He followed 
the Egyptian traditions of dynasties of gods and 
demi-gods, and derived his anecdotes from the 
first Mercury, who had inscribed them in sacred 
characters on antediluvian pillars; antediluvian 
at least according to our received chronology, 
from which the second Mercury had transcribed 
them, and inserted them into his works. We 
have not these authorities, for the monk of 
Viterbo was soon detected ; and if we had them, 
they would either add to our uncertainty, and 
increase the chaos of learning, or tell us nothing 
worth our knowledge. For thus I reason :—had 
they given particular and historical accounts con¬ 
formable to the scriptures of the Jews, Josephus, 
Julius Africanus, and Eusebius, would have made 
quite other extracts from their writings, and 
would have altered and contradicted them less. 
The accounts they gave, therefore, were repug¬ 
nant to sacred writ, or they were defective; they 
would have established pyrrhonism, or have 
baulked our curiosity. 




6o 


STUDY OF HISTORY, 


31. OF SACRED HISTORY. 

What memorials, therefore, remain to give vis 
light into the originals of ancient nations, and 
the history of those ages we commonly call the 
iirst ages ? The Bible, it wil-1 be said ; that is, 
the historical part of it in the Old Testament. 
Bat, ray lord, even these divine books must be 
reputed insufficient to the purpose by every 
candid and impartial man, who considers either 
their authority as histories, or the matter they 
contain. For what are they ? and how came 
they to us ? At the time when Alexander car¬ 
ried his arms into Asia, a people of Syria, till 
then unknown, became known to the Greeks : 
this people had been slaves to the Egyptians, 
Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, as these several 
empires prevailed : ten parts in twelve of them 
had been transplanted by ancient conquerors, and 
melted down and lost in the east, several ages 
before the establishment of the empire that 
Alexander destroyed; the other two parts had 
been carried captive to Babylon, a little before 
the same era. This captivity was not, indeed, 
perpetual, like the other; but it lasted so long, 
and such circumstances, whatever they were. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


61 


accompanied * it, that the captives forgot their 
country, and even their language—the Hebrew 
dialect, at least, and character ; and a few of 
them only could be wrought upon, by the zeal 
of some particular men, to return home, when 
the indulgence of the Persian monarchs gave them 
leave to rebuild their city, and to repeople their 
ancient patrimony. Even this remnant of the 
nation did not continue long entire: another 
great transmigration followed; and the Jews, that 
settled under the protection of the Ptolemies, 
forgot their language in Egypt, as the forefathers 
of these Jews had forgot theirs in Chaldea. More 
attached, however, to their religion in Egypt, 
for reasons easy to be deduced from the new 
institutions that prevailed after the captivity 
among them, than their ancestors had been in 
Chaldea, a version of their sacred writings was 
made into Greek at Alexandria, not long after 
the canon of these scriptures had been finished at 
Jerusalem ; for many years could not intervene 
between the death of Simon the Just, by whom 
this canon was finished, if he died during the 
reign of Ptolemy Soter, and the beginning of this 
famous translation under Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
The Hellenist Jews reported as many marvellous 
things, to authorise and even to sanctify this 
translation, as the oilier Jews had reported about 
Esdras who began, and Simon who finished, 
the canon of their scriptures. Ihese holy ro- 


62 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


mances slid into tradition, and tradition became 
history : the fathers of our Christian church did 
not disdain to employ them. St. Jerome, for 
instance, laughs at the story of the seventy-two 
elders, whose translations were found to be, upon 
comparison, word for word the same; though 
made separately, and by men who had no com¬ 
munication one with another. But the same 
St. Jerome, in the same place, quotes Aristeas, 
one of the guard of Ptolemy Pliiladelphus, as 
a real personage. 

The account pretended to be wrote by this 
Aristeas, of all that passed relating to the transla¬ 
tion, was enough for his purpose. This he re¬ 
tained ; and he rejected only the more impro¬ 
bable circumstances which had been added to the 
tale, and which laid it open to most suspicion. 
In this he showed great prudence, and better 
judgment than that zealous but weak apologist 
Justin, who believed the whole story himself, 
and endeavoured to impose it on mankind. 

Thus you see, my lord, that when we con¬ 
sider these books barely as histories, delivered to 
us on the faith of a superstitious people, among 
whom the custom and art of pious lying pre¬ 
vailed remarkably, we may be allowed to doubt 
whether greater credit is to be given to what 
they tell us concerning the original, compiled in 
their own country, and as it were out of the 
sight of the rest of the world ; than we know, 


STUDY OF HJSTORY. 


Yvith such a certainly as no scholar presumes to 
deny, that we ought to give to what they tell us 
concerning the copy ? 

The Hellenist Jews were extremely pleased, no 
doubt, to have their scriptures in a language they 
understood, and that might spread the fame of 
their antiquity, and do honor to their nation, 
among their masters the Greeks. But yet we 
do not find that the authority of these books 
prevailed, or that even they were much known 
among the Pagan world. The reason of this 
cannot be, that the Greeks admired nothing that 

i 

was not of their own growth, a sua tantum 
mirantur for, on the contrary, they were 
inquisitive and credulous in the highest degree, 
and they collected and published at least as many 
idle traditions of other nations, as they propa¬ 
gated of their own. Josephus pretended that 
Theopompus, a disciple of Isocrates, being about 
to insert in his history some things he had taken 
out of holy writ, the poor man became troubled 
in mind for several days; and that, having prayed 
to God, during an intermission of his illness, to 
reveal to him the cause of it, he learned, in his 
sleep, that this attempt was the cause: upon which 
he quitted the design and was cured. If Josephus 
had been a little more consistent than he is very 
often, such a story as this would not have been 
told by one, who was fond, as Jews and Christians 


64 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


in general liave been, to create an opiniorf that 
the Gentiles took not their history alone, but 
their philosophy and all their valuable know¬ 
ledge, from the Jews. Notwithstanding this story, 
therefore, which is told in the fifteenth book of the 
Jewish Antiquities, and means nothing, or means 
to show that the divine Providence would not 
suffer anecdotes of sacred to be mingled with 
profane history; the practise of Josephus himself, 
and of all those who have had the same design in 
view, lias been to confirm the former by the 
latter; and at any rate to suppose an appearance, 
at least, of conformity between them. We are 
told, Hecataeus Abderita, for there were two of 
that name, wrote a history favorable to the 
Jews ; and, not to multiply instances, though 
I might easily do it, even Alexander Polyhistor 
is called in. 

He is quoted by Josephus, and praised by 
Eusebius as a man of parts and great variety of 
learning. His testimony, about the deluge and 
tower of Babel, is produced by St. Cyril, in his 
first book against Julian: and Justin, the apolo¬ 
gist and martyr, in his exhortation to the Greeks, 
makes use of the same authority, among those 
that mention Moses as a leader and prince of the 
Jews. Though this Polyhistor, if I remember 
right what I think I have met with in Suidas* 
spoke only of a woman he called Moso, “ cujus 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


65 


scriptum est lex HebrceorumS* * Had tlie Greek 
historians been conformable to the sacred, I 
cannot see that their authority, which was not 
contemporary, would have been of any weight. 
They might have copied Moses, and so they did 
Ctesias. But even this was not the case: what¬ 
ever use a particular writer, here and there, 
might make occasionally of the scriptures, cer¬ 
tain it is that the Jews continued to be as much 
despised, and their history to be as generally 
neglected, nay almost as generally unknown, for 
a long time at least after the version was made at 
Alexandria, as they had been before. Apion, an 
Egyptian, a man of much erudition, appeared in 
the world some centuries afterwards. He wrote, 
among other antiquities, those of his own coun¬ 
try ; and as he was obliged to speak very often of 
the Jews, he spoke of them in a manner neither 
much to their honor, nor to that of their his¬ 
tories. He wrote purposely against them; and 
Josephus attempted afterwards, but Apion was 
then dead, to refute him. Apion passed, I know, 
for a vain and noisy pedant; but he passed, like¬ 
wise, for a curious, a laborious, and a learned 

* Mai roe, yuvn ’ECpeuet' »c «<rr/ <rvyfp*/j.{Att o taretp c Egp*iois xoy.o<; uc 
’’Ahs^eivJ'poc o M/Xwovoc o Floxtoorap. Suid. Lex. tom. ii. p. 5bo. 

’A\i%Ctl/J'poe ... Of YloMHTTOip . . . avviypct'ifi & CtpiS-fAX HpilTTOO. Htti 

taripi ’Pupne ‘TZK'iTi. £V TOV'TOIC Xiyu , a>s yvvn yiyovev ‘ECp<x.ta.Ma)<ra> t 

»f urn avy^pctpip/.a. o w&p ‘ECp&ioti vo t uos. Id. tom. i. p. io d. £)dit. Can- 
ut>. 1725. 


66 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


antiquary. If lie was cabalistical or superstitious, 
Josephus was at least as mucli so as he: and if he 
flattered Caligula, Josephus introduced himself 
to the court of Nero and the favor of Poppaea 
by no very honorable means, under the protec¬ 
tion of Aliturus, a player and a Jew; to say 
nothing of his applying to Vespasian the prophe¬ 
cies concerning the Messiah, nor of his accom¬ 
panying Titus to the siege of Jerusalem. 

In short, my lord, the Jewish history never 
obtained any credit in the world, till Christianity 
was established. The foundations of this system 
being laid partly in these histories, and in the 
prophecies joined to them or inserted in them, 
Christianity has reflected back upon them an 
authority which they had not before ; and this 
authority has prevailed wherever Christianity 
has spread. Both Jews and Christians hold the 
same books in great veneration ; whilst each 
condemns the other for not understanding, or 
for abusing them. But I apprehend that the zeal 
of both has done much hurt, by endeavouring 
to extend their authority much farther than is 
necessary for the support, perhaps, of judaism, 
but to be sure of Christianity. I explain myself, 
that I may offend no pious ear. 

Simon, in the preface to his Critical History of 
the Old Testament, cites a divine of the faculty 
of Paris, who held that the inspirations of the 
authors of those books, which the church receives 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 67 

as the word of God, should he extended no far¬ 
ther than to matters purely of doctrine, or to 
such as have a near and necessary relation to 
these 5 and that whenever these authors write on 
other subjects, such as Egyptian, Assyrian, or 
other history, they had no more of the divine 
assistance than any other persons of piety. This 
notion of inspirations, that came occasionally, 
that illuminated the minds and guided the hands 
of the sacred penmen while they were writing 
one page, and restrained their influence while 
the same authors were writing another, may he 
cavilled against; and what is there that may not? 
hut surely it deserves to he treated with respect, 
since it tends to establish a distinction between the 
legal, doctrinal, or prophetical parts of the Bible, 
and the historical: without which distinction, it 
is impossible to establish the first as evidently 
and as solidly as the interests of religion require ; 
at least it appears impossible to me, after having 
examined and considered, as well as I am able, all 
the trials of this kind that have been made by 
subtile as well as learned men. The Old is said 
to be the foundation of the New, and so it is in 
one sense; the system of religion, contained in 
the latter, refers to the system of religion con¬ 
tained in the former, and supposes the truth of 
it. But the authority on which we receive the 
books of the New Testament is so far from being 
founded on the authority of the Old Testament, 


F 2 



G8 STUDY OF HISTORY.* 

that it is quite independent on it; the New, being 
proved, gives authority to the Old, hut borroAVS 
none from it ; and gives this authority to the 
particular parts only. Christ came to fulfil tliQ 
prophecies ; hut.not to consecrate all the written, 
any more than the oral, traditions of the JeAvs. 
t We must believe these traditions as far as they 
relate to Christianity, as far as Christianity refers 
to them, or supposes them necessary, hut Ave can 
he under no obligation to believe them any far¬ 
ther; since, without Christianity, Ave should be 
under no obligation to believe them at all. 

It lias been said by Abbadie and others, u that 
the accidents Avhich have happened to alter the 
texts of the Bible, and to disfigure, if I may say so, 
the scriptures in many respects, could not have 
been prevented without a perpetual standing 
miracle, and that a perpetual standing miracle 
is not in the order of Providence.” Noav I can 
by no means subscribe to this opinion ; it seems 
evident, to my reason, that the A^ery contrary 
must be true ; if we suppose that God acts to¬ 
wards men according to the moral fitness of 
things ; and if Ave suppose that he acts arbitra¬ 
rily, we can form no opinion at all. I think that 
these accidents would not have happened, or that 
the scriptures A\ r ould have been preserved en¬ 
tirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding 
these accidents, if they had been entirely dic¬ 
tated by the Holy Ghost; and the proof of this 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 69 

probable proposition, according to our clearest 
and most distinct ideas of wisdom and moral fit— 
ness, is obvious and easy. But these scriptures 
are not so come down to us ; they are come 
down broken and confused, full of additions, in¬ 
terpolations, and transpositions, made we neither 
know when nor by whom ; and such, in short, 
as never appeared on the face of any other book, 
on whose authority men have agreed to rely. 

This being so, my lord, what hypothesis shall 
we follow? Shall we adhere to some such dis¬ 
tinction as I have mentioned ? Shall we say, for 
instance, that the scriptures were written origi¬ 
nally by the authors to whom they are vulgarly 
ascribed, but that these authors wrote nothing by 
inspiration, except the legal, the doctrinal, and 
the prophetical parts; and that, in every other 
respect, their authority is purely human, and 
therefore fallible ? Or shall we say that these 
histories are nothing more than compilations of 
old traditions, and abridgments of old records, 
made in later times ; as they appear to every one 
who reads them without prepossession, and with 
attention ? Shall we add, that which ever of 
th ese probabilities be true, we may believe, con¬ 
sistently with either, notwithstanding the deci¬ 
sion of any divines, who know no more than 
you or I, or any other man of the order of Pro* 
vidence, that all those parts and passage's of the 
Old Testament, which contain prophecies, or 



70 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

matters of law or doctrine, and which were from 

. 

the first of such importance in the designs of 
Providence to all future generations, and even to 
the whole race of mankind, have been from the 
first the peculiar care of Providence ? Shall we 
insist that such particular parts and passages, 
which are plainly marked out, and sufficiently 
confirmed by the system of the Christian reve¬ 
lation, and by the completion of the prophecies, 
have been preserved from corruption by ways 
impenetrable to us, amidst all the changes and 
chances to which the books wherein they are 
recorded have been exposed ; and that neither 
original writers, nor later compilers, have been 
suffered to make any essential alterations, such as 
would have falsified the law of God and the prin¬ 
ciples of the Jewish and Christian religions, in 
any of those divine fundamental truths ? Upon 
such hypotheses, we may assert without scruple, 
that the genealogies and histories of the Old 
Testament are in no respect sufficient founda¬ 
tions for a chronology from the beginning of 
time, nor for universal history. But then the 
same hypotheses will secure the infallibility of 
scripture authority, as far as religion is con¬ 
cerned. Faith and reason may be reconciled a 
little better than they commonly are : I may deny 
that the Old Testament is transmitted to us under 
all the conditions of an authentic history, and 
yet be at liberty to maintain, that the passages 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


7 * 

in it which establish original sin, which seem 
favorable to the doctrine of the Trinity, which 
loretel the comingof the Messiah, and all others 
of similar kind, are come down to us as they were 
originally dictated by the Holy Ghost. 

In attributing the whole credibility of the Old 
Testament to the authority of the New, and in 
limiting the authenticity of the Jewish scriptures 
to those parts alone that concern law, doctrine, 
and prophecy, by which their chronology and. 
the far greatest part of their history are excluded, 
I will venture to assure your lordship, that I do 
not assume so much as is assumed in every 
hypothesis that affixes the divine seal of inspira¬ 
tion to the whole canon; that rests the whole 
proof on Jewish veracity; and that pretends to 
account particularly and positively for the descent 
of these ancient writings in their present state. 

Another reason, for which I have insisted the 
rather on the distinction so often mentioned, is 
this : I think we may find very good foundation 
for it even in the Bible; and though this be a point 
very little attended to, and. much disguised, it 
would not be hard to show, upon great induce¬ 
ments of probability, that the law and the history 
were far from being blended together as they now 
stand in the Pentateuch, even from the time of 
Moses down to that of Esdras. But the principal 
and decisive reason for separating in such manner 
the legal, doctrinal, and prophetical parts, from 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


I ' 2 

the historical, is the necessity of having some rule 
to go by 5 and, I protest, I know of none that is yet 
agreed upon. I content myself, therefore, to fix 
my opinion concerning the authority of the Old 
Testament in this manner, and carry it thus far 
only. We must do so, or we must enter into that 
labyrinth of dispute and contradiction, wherein 
even the most orthodox Jews and Christians 
have wandered so many ages, and still wander. 
It is strange, but it is true; not only the Jews 
differ from the Christians, hut Jews and Chris¬ 
tians both differ among themselves, concerning 
almost every point that is necessary to he certainly 
known and agreed upon, in order to establish the 
authority of hooks which both have received 
already as authentic and sacred . So that whoever 
takes the pains to read what learned men have 
wrote on this subject, will find that they leave 
the matter as doubtful as they took it up. Who 
were the authors of these scriptures, when they 
were published, how they, were composed and 
preserved, or renewed, to use a remarkable ex¬ 
pression of the famous Huet in his Demonstration; 
in fine, how they were lost during the captivity, 
and how they were retrieved after it • are all 
matters of controversy to this day. 

It would be easy for me to descend into a 
greater detail, and to convince your lordship of 
what I have been saying in general, by an induc¬ 
tion of particulars, even without any other help 





STUDY OF HISTORY. 7 5 

than that of a few notes which I took when I ap¬ 
plied myself to this examination, and which now 
lie before me. But such a digression would carry 
me too far; and I fear that you will think I have 
said already more than enough upon this part of 
my subject: I go on, therefore, to observe to your 
lordship, that if the history of the Old Testament 
was as exact and authentic, as the ignorance and 
impudence of some rabbies have made them 
assert that it is: if we could believe with them 
that Moses wrote every syllable in the Pentateuch 
as it now stands; or that all the Psalms were writ¬ 
ten by David: nay, if we could believe, with 
Philo and Josephus, that Moses wrote the account 
of his own death and sepulture, and made a sort 
of a funeral panegyric on himself, as we find them 
in the last chapter of Deuteronomy: yet still 
would I venture to assert, that he who expects to 
find a system of chronology, or a thread of his¬ 
tory, or sufficient materials for either, in the books 
of the Old Testament, expects to find what the 
authors of these books, whoever they were, never 
intended. They are extracts of genealogies, not 
genealogies: extracts of histories, not histories. 
The Jews themselves allow their genealogies to 
be very imperfect, and produce examples or omis¬ 
sions and errors in them, which denote suffi¬ 
cient! v that these genealogies are ex tracts, wherein 
every generation in the course of descent is not 
mentioned. I have read somewhere, perhaps in 


7 4 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

the works of St. Jerome, that this farther justifies 
the opinion of those who think it impossible to 
fix any certain chronology on that of the Bible; 
and this opinion will be justified still better, to 
the understanding of every man that considers 
how grossly the Jews blunder whenever they 
meddle with chronology; for this plain reason, 
because their scriptures are imperfect in this 
respect, and because they rely on their oral, to 
rectify and supply their written traditions : that 
is, they rely on traditions compiled long after the 
canon of their scriptures, but deemed by them 
of equal antiquity and authority. Thus, for 
instance, Daniel and Simon the just, according 
to them, were members at the same time of the 
great synagogue which began and finished the 
canon of the Old Testament, under the presi¬ 
dency of Esdras. This Esdras was the prophet 
Malachi. Darius the son of Hystaspes was Ar- 
taxerxes Longimanus; he was Ahasuerus, and he 
was the same Darius whom Alexander conquered. 
This may serve as a sample of Jewish chrono¬ 
logy, formed on their scriptures which afford 
insufficient lights, and on their traditions which 
afford false lights. We are indeed more correct, 
and come nearer to the truth in these instances, 
perhaps in some others, because we make use of 
profane chronology to help us. But profane 
chronology is itself so modern, so precarious, 
that this help does not reach to the greatest part 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 75 

of that time to which sacred chronology extends; 
that when it begins to help, it begins to perplex 
us too; and finally, that even with this help we 
should not have had so much as the appearance of 
a complete chronological system: and the same 
may be said of universal history, if learned men 
had not proceeded very wisely, on one uniform 
maxim, from the first ages of Christianity, when 
a custom of sanctifying profane learning, as well 
as profane rites, which the Jews had impru¬ 
dently laid aside, was taken up by the Christians. 
The maxim I mean is this; that profane autho¬ 
rity be admitted without scruple or doubt, when¬ 
ever it says, or whenever it can be made to say, 
if not u totidem verbis” yet u totidem syllabis” 
or “ totidem Uteris' 1 ' at least; or whenever it can 
be made by any interpretation to mean, what con¬ 
firms or supplies in a consistent manner the holy 
writ; and that the same authority be rejected, 
when nothing of this kind can be done, but the 
contradiction or inconsistency remains irrecon- 
cileable. Such a liberty as this would not be 
allowed in any other case; because it supposes 
the very thing that is to be proved. But we see 
it taken, very properly to be sure, in favor of 
sacred and infallible writings, when they are 
compared with others.. 

In order to perceive with the utmost evidence, 
that the scope and design of the author or au¬ 
thors of the Pentateuch, and of the other books 


r?6 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

* 

of the Old Testament, answer as little tlie pur¬ 
pose of antiquaries in history as in chrono¬ 
logy, it will be sufficient briefly to call to mind 
the sum of what they relate, from the creation, 
of the world to the establishment of the Persian 
empire.. If the antediluvian world continued one 
thousand six hundred and fifty-six years, and 
if the vocation of Abraham is to be placed four 
hundred and twenty-six years below the deluge, 
these twenty centuries make almost two-thirds 
of the period mentioned : and the whole history 
of them is comprised in eleven short chapters 
of Genesis, which is certainly the most com¬ 
pendious extract that ever was made. If we 
examine the contents of these chapters, do we 
find any thing like an universal history, or so 
much as an abridgment of it? Adam and Eve 
were created, they broke the commandment of 
God, they were driven out of the garden of Eden ; 
one of their sons killed his brother, but their 
children soon multiplied and peopled the earth. 
What geography now have we, what history of 
this antediluvian world? why, none. The sons of 
God, it is said, lay with the daughters of men, 
and begot giants, and God drowned all the inha¬ 
bitants of the earth, except one family. After this 
we read, that the earth was repeopled 5 but these 
children- of one family were divided into several 
languages, even whilst they lived together, spoke 
the same language, and were employed in the 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 77 

same work. Out of one of the countries into 
which they dispersed themselves, in Chaldea, 
God called Abraham some time afterwards, with 
magnificent promises, and conducted him to a 
country called Canaan. Did this author, my lord, 
intend an universal history? Certainly not. The 
tenth chapter of Genesis names indeed some of 
the generations descending from the sons of Noah, 
some of the cities founded, and some of the coun¬ 
tries planted by them. But Avhat are bare names, 
naked of circumstances, wiLhout descriptions of 
countries, or relations of events ? they furnish 
matter only for guess and dispute; and even the 
similitude of them, which is often used as a clue 
to lead us to the discovery of historical truth, 
has notoriously contributed to propagate error, 
and to increase the perplexity of ancient tra¬ 
dition. These imperfect and dark accounts have 
not furnished matter for guess and dispute alone; 
but a much worse use has been made of them 
by Jewish rabbies, Christian fathers, and Maho- 

V ' 

inetan doctors, in their profane extensions of 
this part of the Mosaic history. The creation 
of the first man is described by some, as if, Pre- 
adamites, they had assisted at it. They talk of his 
beauty, as if* they had seen him; of his gigantic 
size, as if they had measured him; and of liis 
prodigious knowledge, as if they had conversed 
with him : they point out the very spot where 


78 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

Eve laid her head the first time he enjoyed her : 
they have minutes of the whole conversation be¬ 
tween this mother of mankind, who damned her 
children before she bore them, and the serpent. 
Some are positive that Cain quarrelled with Abel 
about a point of doctrine, and others affirm that 
the dispute arose about a girl. A great deal of 
such stuff may be easily collected about Enoch, 
about Noah, and about the sons of Noah; but I 
wave any farther mention of such impertinencies 
as Bonzes or Talapoins would almost blush to 
relate. Upon the whole matter, if we may guess 
at the design of an author by the contents of his 
book, the design of Moses, or of the author of 
the history ascribed to him, in this part of it, 
was to inform the people of Israel of their descent 
from Noah by Shem, and of Noah’s from Adam 
by Seth; to illustrate their original; to establish 
their claim to the land of Canaan; and to justify 
all the cruelties committed by Joshua in the con¬ 
quest of the Canaanites, in whom, says Bochart, 
44 the prophecy of Noah was completed, when 
44 they were subdued by the Israelites, who had 
44 so long been slaves to the Egyptians. ” 

Allow me to make, as I go along, a short reflec¬ 
tion or two on this prophecy, and the completion 
of it, as they stand recorded in the Pentateuch, 
out of many that might be made. The terms 
of the prophecy then are not very clear : and 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


79 

the curse pronounced in it contradicts all our 
notions of order and of justice. One is tempted 
to think, that the patriarch was still drunk ; and 
that no man in his senses could hold such lan¬ 
guage, or pass such a sentence. Certain it is, that 
no writer but a Jew could impute to the economy 
of divine Providence the accomplishment of such 
a prediction, nor make the Supreme Being the 
executor of such a curse. 

Ham alone offended, Canaan was innocent; for 
the Hebrew and other doctors, who would make 
the son an accomplice with his father, affirm not 
only without, but against, the express authority 
of the text. Canaan was however alone cursed : 
he became, according to his grandfather’s pro¬ 
phecy, “ a servant of servants,” that is, the vilest 
and worst of slaves (for I take these words in a 
sense, if not the most natural, the most favor¬ 
able to the prophecy, and the least absurd) to 
Shem, though not to Japhet, when the Israelites 
conquered Palestine; to one of his uncles, not to 
his brethren. Will it be said—it has been said, 
that where we read Canaan, we are to understand 
Ham, whose brethren Shem and Japhet were? 
At this rate, we shall never know what we read ; 
as these critics never care what they say. Will 
it be said—this has been said too—that Ham 
was punished in his posterity, when Canaan was 
cursed and his descendants were exterminated ? 
But who does not see that the.curse, and the 

1 * 


So 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


punishment, in this case, fell on Canaan and his 
posterity, exclusively of the rest of the posterity 
of Ham; and were therefore the curse and punish¬ 
ment of the son, not of the father properly ? The 
descendants ofMesraim, another of his sons, were 
the Egyptians : and they were so far from being 
servants of servants to their cousins the Shemites, 
that these were servants of servants to them, 
during more than fourscore years. Why the 
posterity of Canaan was to be deemed an ac¬ 
cursed race, it is easy to account; and I have 
mentioned it just now. But it is not so easy to 
account, why the posterity of the righteous Shem, 
that great example of filial reverence, became 
slaves' to another branch of the family of Ham. 

It would not be worth while to lengthen this 
tedious letter, by setting down any more of 
the contents of the history of the Bible. Your 
lordship may please to call the substance of it to 
your mind , and your native candor and love of 
truth will oblige you then to confess, that these 
sacred books do not aim, in any part of them, 
at any thing like universal chronology and his¬ 
tory. They contain a very imperfect account 
of the Israelites themselves; of their settlement 
in the land of promise, of which, bv the way 
they never had entire, and scarce ever peaceable 
possession; of their divisions, apostacies, repen¬ 
tances, relapses, triumphs, and defeats, under 
the occasional government of their judges, and 


STUDY OF HISTORY. fti' 

under that of their kings ; of the Galilean and 
Samaritan captivities, into which they were car- 
lied by the kings of Assyria, and of that which 
was brought on the remnant of this people when 
the kingdom of Judah was destroyed by those 
princes who governed the empire, founded 
on the union of Nineveh and Babylon. These 
things aie all related, your lordship knows, in 
a very summary and confused manner : and we 
learn so little ol other nations by these accounts 
that if we do not borrow some tight from the 
traditions of other nations, we should scarce 
understand them. One particular observation, 
and but one, I will make, to show what know¬ 
ledge in the history of mankind, and in the com¬ 
putation of time, may be expected from these 
books. The Assyrians were their neighbours; 
powerful neighbours, with whom they had much 
and long to do : of this empire, therefore, if of 
any thing, we might hope to find some satisfac¬ 
tory account. What do we find? The scripture 
takes no notice of any Assyrian kingdom, till 
just before the time when profane history makes 
that empire to end. Then we hear of Pliul, 
of Teghath-Plialasser, who was perhaps the same 
person, and of Salrnanaser, who took Samaria in 
the twelfth of the era of Nabonasser, that is, 
twelve years after the Assyrian empire was no 
more. Senacherib succeeds to him, and Asser- 



82 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


liadclon to Senacherib. What shall we say to this 
apparent contrariety? If the silence of the Bible 
creates a strong presumption against the first, 
may not the silence of profane authority create 
some against the second Assyrian monarclis? 
The pains that are taken to persuade, that there 
is room enough between Sardanapalus and Cyrus 
for the second, will not resolve the difficulty: 
something much more plausible may be said, 
but even this will be hypothetical, and liable to 
great contradiction. So that upon the whole 
matter, the scriptures are so far from giving us 
light into general history, that they increase the 
obscurity even of those parts to which they have 
the nearest relation. W e have, therefore, neither 
in profane nor in sacred authors, such authentic, 
clear, distinct, and full accounts of the originals 
of ancient nations, and of the great events of 
those ages that are commonly called the first 
ages, as deserve to go by the name of history, 
or as afford sufficient materials for chronology 
and history. 

I might now proceed to observe to your lord- 
ship how this has happened, not only by the 
necessary consequences of human nature, and 
the ordinary course of human affairs, but by the 

V ' V 

policy, artifice, corruption, and folly of mankind. 
But this would be to heap digression upon | 
digression, and to presume too much on your 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 


85 


patience : I shall, therefore, content myself to 
apply these reflections on the state of ancient 
history to the study of history, and to the 
method to he observed in it, as soon as your 
dordship has rested yourself a little after reading, 
and I after writing so long a letter. 







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STUDY OF HISTORY. 



LETTER IV. 


I. That there is in history sufficient authenticity to render 
it useful, notwithstanding all objections to the contrary. 

II. Of the method and due restrictions to he observed in the 
study of it. 


WHETHER the letter I now begin to write 
will be long or short,I know not; but I find nwy 
memory is refreshed, my imagination warmed, 
and matter flows in so fast upon me, that I have 
not time to press it close: since, therefore, you 
have provoked me to write, you must be content 
to take what follows. 

I have observed already, that we are apt natu¬ 
rally to apply to ourselves what has happened to 
other men, and that examples take their force 
from lienee ; as well those which history, as 
those which experience offers to our reflection. 
What we do not believe to have happened, there¬ 
fore, we shall not thus apply; and for want of 
the same application, such examples will not have 
the same effect. Ancient history, such ancient 






STUDY OF HISTORY. 


liistory as I have described, is quite unfit, there-’ 
fore, in this respect, to answer the ends that 
every reasonable man should propose to himself 
in this study; because such ancient history will 
;never gain sufficient credit with any reasonable 
man. A tale well told, or a comedy or a tragedy 
well wrought up, may have a momentary effect 


upon the mind, by heating the imagination, sur¬ 
prising the judgment, and affecting strongly the 
passions. The Athenians are said to be trans¬ 
ported into a kind of martial phrensy by the repre¬ 
sentation of a tragedy of kEschylus, and to have 
marched under this influence from the theatre to 
the plains of Marathon. These momentary impres¬ 
sions might be managed, for aught I know, in 
such a manner as to contribute a little, by fre¬ 
quent repetitions of them, towards maintaining a 
kind of habitual contempt, of folly, detestation of 
vice, and admiration of virtue, in well-policed 
commonwealths : but then these impressions 
cannot be made, nor this little effect be wrought, 
unless the fables bear an appearance of truth. 
Wh en they bear this appearance, reason connives 
at the innocent fraud of imagination; ‘reason dis¬ 
penses, in favor of probability, with those strict 
rules of criticism that she has established to try 
the truth of fact: but, after all, she receives these 
fables as fables; and as such only she permits 
imagination to make the most of them. If they 
pretended to be history, they would be soon sub- 



STL BY OF HISTORY. 8 7 

jectcd to an oilier and more severe examination. 

hat may have happened, is the matter of an 
ingenious fable; what has happened, is that of an 
authentic history: the impressions which one or 
the other makes are in proportion. When ima¬ 
gination grows lawless and wild, rambles out of 
the precincts of nature, and tells of heroes and 
giants, fairies and enchanters, of events and of 
phenomena repugnant to universal experience, 
to our clearest and most distinct ideas, and to 
all the known laws of nature, reason does not 
connive a moment; but, far from receiving such 
narrations as historical, she rejects them as 
unworthy to be placed even among the fabulous. 
Such narrations, therefore, cannot make the 
slightest momentary impressions on a mind 
fraught with knowledge and void of superstition : 
imposed by authority, and assisted by artifice, 
the delusion hardly prevails over common 
sense; blind ignorance almost sees, and rash super¬ 
stition hesitates: nothing less than enthusiasm, 
and phrensy can give credit to such histories, or 
apply such examples. Don Quixote believed, 
but even Sancho doubted. 

What I have said will not be much contro¬ 
verted by any man who has read Araadis of Gaul, 
or has examined our ancient traditions without 
prepossession. The truth is, the principal dif¬ 
ference between them seems to be this : in Aina- 
dis of Gaul, we have a thread of absurdities that 


88 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 

are invented without any regard to probability, 
and that lav no drum to belief: ancient traditions 
are a heap of fables, under which some particular 
truths, inscrutable, and therefore useless to man¬ 
kind, may lie concealed 5 which have a just pre¬ 
tence to nothing more, and yet impose themselves 
upon us, and become, under the venerable name 
of ancient history, the foundations of modern 
fables, the materials with which so many systems, 
of fancy have been erected. 

But now, as men are apt to carry their judg¬ 
ments into extremes, there are some that will he 
ready to insist that all history is fabulous, and 
that the very best is nothing better than a pro¬ 
bable tale, artfully contrived, and plausibly told, 
wherein truth and falshoodare indistinguishably 
blended together. All the instances, and all the 
common-place argument, that Bayle and others 
have employed to establish this sort of Pyrrho¬ 
nism, will be quoted; and from thence it will be 
concluded, that if the pretended histories of the 
first ages, and of the originals of nations, be too 
improbable and too ill-vouched to procure any 
degree of belief, those histories that have been 
wrote later, that carry a greater air of probability, 
and that boast even contemporary authority, are 
at least insufficient to gain that degree of firm 
belief, which is necessary to render the study of 
them useful to mankind. But here that happens 
which often happens; the premises are true, and 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


8 9 

the conclusion is false; because a general axiom 
is established precariously on a certain number of 
partial observations. This matter is of conse¬ 
quence; for it tends to ascertain the degrees of 
assent that we may give to history. 

I agree, then, that history has been purposely 
and sj^stem^tically falsified in all ages; and that 
partiality and prejudice have occasioned both 
voluntary and involuntary errors even in the 
best. Let me say without offence, my lord, since 
I may say it with truth, and am able to prove it, 
that ecclesiastical authority has led the way to 
this corruption in all ages and all religions. How 
monstrous were the absurdities that the priest¬ 
hood imposed on the ignorance and superstition 
of mankind, in the Fagan world, concerning the 
originals of religions and governments, their 
institutions and rites, their laws and customs? 
What opportunities had they for such imposi¬ 
tions, whilst the keeping the records and collect¬ 
ing the traditions was in so many nations the 
peculiar office of this order of men? a custom 
highly extolled by Josephus, but plainly liable to 
the grossest frauds, and even a temptation to 
them. If the foundations of judaism and Chris¬ 
tianity have been laid in truth, yet what num¬ 
berless fables have been invented to raise, to 
embellish, and to support these structures, ac¬ 
cording to the interest and taste of the several 
architects ? That the Jews have been guilty of this 


(JO STUDY or HISTORY. 

will be allowed* and, to the sharne of Christians, 
if not of Christianity, the fathers of one church 
have no right to throw the iirst stone at the 
fathers of the other. Deliberate systematical 
lying has been practised and encouraged from age 
to age; and among all the pious frauds that have 
been employed to maintain a reverence and zeal 
for their religion in the minds of men, this abuse 
of history has been one of the principal and most 
successful: an evident and experimental proof, by 
the way, of what 1 have insisted upon so much, 
the aptitude and natural tendency of history to 
form our opinions, and to settle our habits. This 
righteous expedient was in so much use and 
repute in the Greek church, that one Metapliras- 
tus wrote a treatise on the art of composing holy 
romances: the fact, if I remember right, is cited 
by Baillet in his book of the Lives of the Saints. 
He and other learned men of the Roman church 
have thought it of service to their cause, since 
the resurrection of letters, to detect some impos¬ 
tors, and to depose, or to unniche (according to 
the French expression) nowand then a reputed 
saint; but they seem, in doing this, to mean no 
more than a sort of composition : they give up 
some fables that they may defend others with 
greater advantage, and they make truth serve 
as a stalking-horse to error. The same spirit 
that prevailed in the eastern church, prevailed 
in the western, and prevails still A strong 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


'J 1 

proof of it appeared lately in the country where 
1 am. A sudden fury of devotion seized the people 
of Paris for a little priest,* undistinguished during 
his life, and dubbed a saint by the Jansenists 
after his death. Had the first minister been a 
.Tansenist, the saint had been a saint still : all 
France had kept his festival; and, since there 
are thousands of eye-witnesses ready to attest the 
truth of all the miracles supposed to have been 
wrought at his tomb, notwithstanding the dis¬ 
couragement which these zealots have met with 
from tlie government, we may assure ourselves, 
that these silly impostors would have been trans¬ 
mitted in all the solemn pomp of history, from 
the knaves of this age to the fools of the next. 

This lying spirit has gone forth from ecclesias¬ 
tical to other historians; and I might fill many 
jiages with instances of extravagant fables that 
have been invented in several nations, to cele- 
brate their antiquity, to ennoble their originals^ 
and to make them appear illustrious in the arts 
of peace and the triumphs of war. When the 
brain is well heated, and devotion or vanity, the 
semblance of virtue or real vice, and, above all, 
disputes and contests have inspired that ompli- 
cation of passions we term zeal, the effects are 
much the same, and history becomes very often 
a lying panegyric or a lying satire ; for different 


* Tlie Abbe Paris. 


£}2 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

nations, or different parties in the same nation, 
belie one another without any respect for truth, as 
they murder one another without any regard to 
right or sense of humanity. Religious zeal may 
boast this horrid advantage over civil zeal, that the 
effects of it have been more sanguinary, and the 
malice more unrelenting. In another respect, they 
are more alike, and keep a nearer proportion: dif¬ 
ferent religions have not been quite so barbarous 
to one another, as sects of the same religion; and, 
in like manner, nation has had better quarter 
from nation, than party from party. But in all 
these controversies men have pushed their rage 
beyond their own and their adversaries lives: 
they have endeavoured to interest posterity in 
their quarrels ; and by rendering history subser¬ 
vient to this wicked purpose, they have done 
their utmost to perpetuate scandal, and to immor¬ 
talize their animosity. The Heathen taxed the 
Jews even with idolatry; the Jews joined with 
the Heathen to render Christianity odious: but 
the church, who beat them at their own weapons 
during these contests, has had this further triumph 
over them, as well as over the several sects that 
have arisen within her own pale : the works of 
those who have wrote against her have, been 
destroyed ; and whatever she advanced, to justify 
herself and to defame her adversaries, is pre¬ 
served in her annals and the writings of her 
doctors. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 95 

The charge of corrupting history, in the cause 
of religion, has been always committed to the 
most famous champions and greatest saints of 
each church; and if I was not more afraid of 
tiring, than of scandalising your lordship, I could 
quote to you examples of modern churchmen, 
who have endeavoured to justify foul language by 
the New Testament, and cruelty by the Old : nay, 
what is execrable beyond imagination, and what 
strikes horror into every mind that entertains due 
sentiments of the supreme Being, God himself 
has been cited for rallying and insulting Adam 
after his fall. In other cases, this charge belongs 
to the pedants of every nation, and the tools of 
every party. What accusations of idolatry and 
superstition have not been brought and aggra¬ 
vated against the Mahometans? Those wretched 
Christians who returned from those wars, so im¬ 
properly called the holy wars, rumored these 
stories about the West : and you may find, in 
some of the old chroniclers and romance-writers, 
as well as poets, the Saracens called Paynims; 
though surely they were much further off from 
any suspicion of polytheism, than those who 
called them by that name. When Mahomet the 
Second took Constantinople in the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury, the Mahometans began to be a little better, 
and hut a little better, known, than they had 
been before, to these parts of the world : but 
their religion, as well as their customs and 


g4 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

manners, was strangely misrepresented by the 
Greek refugees that lied from the Turks; and the 
terror and hatred which this people had inspired 
by the rapidity of their conquests, and by their 
ferocity, made all these misrepresentations uni¬ 
versally pass for truths. Many such instances 
may be collected from Maraccio’s refutation of 
the Koran; and Relandus has published a very 
valuable treatise, on purpose to refute these 
calumnies and to justify the Mahometans. Does 
not this example incline your lordship to think, 
that the Heathens, and the Arians, and other here¬ 
tics, would not appear quite so absurd in their 
opinions, nor so abominable in their practice, as 
the orthodox Christians have represented them; 
if some Relandus could arise with the materials 
necessary to their justification in his hands? He 
who reflects on the circumstances that attended 
letters, from the time when Constantine, instead 
of uniting the characters of emperor and sove¬ 
reign pontiff in himself, when he became Christian, 
as they were united in him and all the other 
emperors in the Pagan system of government, 
gave so much independent wealth and power to 
the clergy, and the means of acquiring so much 
more: he who carries these reflections on through 

o 

all the latter empire, and through those ages of 
ignorance and superstition, wherein it was hard 
to say which was greatest, the tyranny of the 
clergy, or the servility ol the laity : he who 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


9 5 

considers the extreme severity, for instance, of 
the laws made by Theodosius, in order to stifle 
every writing that the orthodox clergy, that is, 
the clergy then in fashion, disliked; or the cha¬ 
racter and influence of such a priest as Gregory 
called theGreat,who proclaimed war to all heathen 
learning, in order to promote Christian verity; 
and flattered Brunehault, and abetted Phocas : he 
who considers all these things, I say, will not be 
at a loss to find the reasons, why history, both 
that which was wrote before, and a great part 
of that which has been wrote since the Christian 
era, is come to us so imperfect and so corrupt. 

When the imperfection is due to a total want 
of memorials, either because none were origi¬ 
nally written, or because they have been lost by 
devastations of countries, extirpations of people, 
and other accidents, in a long course of time; or 
because zeal, malice, and policy, have joined their 
endeavours to destroy them purposely; we must 
be content to remain in our ignorance, and there 
is no great harm in that. Secure from being de¬ 
ceived, I can submit to be uninformed. But when 
there is not a total want of memorials, when some 
have been lost or destroyed, and others have been 
preserved and propagated, then we are in danger 
of being deceived : and therefore he must be very 
implicit indeed, who receives for true the history 
of any religion or nation, and much more that 
of iujy sect or party, without having the means of 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


96 

confronting it with some other history. A rea¬ 
sonable man will not be thus implicit : he will 
not establish the truth of history on single, but 
on concurrent testimony; if there be none such, 
he will doubt absolutely : if there be a little such, 
he will proportion his assent or dissent accord¬ 
ingly. A small gleam of light, borrowed from 
foreign anecdotes, serves often to discover a 
whole system of falshood; and even they who 
corrupt history, frequently betray themselves 
by their ignorance or inadvertency : examples 
whereof I could easily produce. Upon the whole 
matter, in all these cases, we cannot be deceived 
essentially, unless we please : and therefore there 
is no reason to establish Pyrrhonism, that we 
may avoid the ridicule of credulity. 

In all other cases, there is less reason still to 
do so; for when histories and historical memo¬ 
rials abound, even those that are false serve to 
the discovery of the truth. Inspired by different 
passions, and contrived for opposite purposes, 
they contradict; and, contradicting, they convict 
one another. Criticism separates the ore from 
the dross, and extracts from various authors a 
series of true history, which could not have 
been found entire in any one of them, and will 
command our assent, when it is formed with 
judgment and represented with candor. If this 
may be done, as it has been done sometimes, 
with the help of authors who wrote on purpose 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


97 

deceive; how much more easily and more effec¬ 
tually may it be done, with the help of those who 
paid a greater regard to truth? In a multitude 
ol writers, there will be always some, either in¬ 
capable *of gross prevarication from the fear of 
being discovered, and of acquiring infamy whilst 
they seek for fame, or else attached to truth 
upon a nobler and surer principle ; it is certain 
that these, even the last of them, are fallible : 
bribed by some passion or other, the former may 
venture, now and then, to propagate a falshood 
or to disguise a truth; like the painter that drew 
in profile, as Lucian says, the picture of a prince 
that had but one eye. Montaigne objects to the 
memorials of Du Bellay, that though the gross of 
the facts be truly related, yet these authors turned 
every thing they mentioned to the advantage 
of their master, and mentioned nothing which 
could not be so turned. The old fellow’s words 
are worth quoting.—“ De contourner le jugement 
des (Zvenemens souvent contre raison d notre avail - 
iage, et d’obmeUre tout ce qidily a de chatouilleux 
en la vie de leur maistre> Us enfont mestier. ” These, 
and such as these, deviate occasionally and volum 
tarily from truth; but even they who are attached 
to it the most religiously may slide sometimes 
into involuntary error. In matters of history 7 we 
prefer very justly contemporary authority; and 
yet contemporary authors are the most liable to 
be warped from the straight rule of truth., in 

H 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


9 8 

writing on subjects which have affected them 
strongly, u et quorum pars magna fuerunt. ” I am 
so persuaded of this, from what 1 have felt in my¬ 
self and observed in others, that if life and health 
enough fall to my share, and I am able to finish 
what I meditate, a kind of history from the late 
queen’s accession to the throne to the peace of 
Utrecht, there will be no materials that I shall 
'examine more scrupulously and severely, than 
those of the time when the events to be spoken 
of were in transaction. But though the writers 
of these two sorts, both of whom pay as much 
regard to truth as the various infirmities of our 
nature admit, are fallible; yet this fallibility will 
not be sufficient to give color to Pyrrhonism. 
Where their sincerity as to fact is doubtful, we 
strike out truth by the confrontation of different 
accounts, as we strike out sparks of fire by the 
collision of flints and steel. Where their judg¬ 
ments are suspicious of partiality, we may judge 
for ourselves; or adopt their judgments, after 
weighing them with certain grains of allowance. 

A little natural sagacity will proportion these 
grains according to the particular circumstances 
of the authors, or their general characters; for 
even these influence. Thus Montaigne pretends 
but he exaggerates a little, that Guicciardin no 
where ascribes any one action to a virtuous, but 
every one to a vicious principle. Something like j 
this has been reproached to Tacitus : and, (not- 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


99 

withstanding all the sprightly loose observations 
of Montaigne in one of his essays, where he labors 
to prove the contrary, ) read Plutarch’s compa¬ 
risons in what language you please,—I am of 
.Bodin’s mind, you will perceive that they were 
made by a Greek. In short, my lord, the favor¬ 
able opportunities f corrupting history have 
been so often interrupted, and are now over in so 
many countries, that truth penetrates even into 
those where lying continues still to be part of the 
policy ecclesiastical and civil; or where, to say ihe 
best we can say, truth is never suffered to appear, 
lilt she has passed through hands, out of which 
she seldom returns entire and undeliled. 

But it is time I should conclude this head, 
under which I have touched some of those 
reasons that show the folly of endeavouring to 
establish universal Pyrrhonism in matters of 
history, because there are few histories without 
some lies, and none without some mistakes, and 
that prove the body of history which we possess, 
since ancient memorials have been so critically 
examined, and modern memorials have been so 
multiplied, to contain in it such a probable series 
of events easily distinguishable from the impro¬ 
bable, as force the assent of every man who is in 
his senses, and are therefore sufficient to answer 
all the purposes of the study of history. I might 
have appealed, perhaps, without entering into the 
argument at all, to any man of candor, whether 


3 OO 


STUDY OP HISTORY. 


his doubts concerning the truth of history have 
hindered him from applying the examples he has 
met with in it, and from judging of the present, 
and sometimes of the future, by the past? whe¬ 
ther he has not been touched with reverence and 
admiration, at the virtue and wisdom of some 
men, and of some ages; and whether he has not 
felt indignation and contempt for others? whether 
Epaminondas or Phocion, for instance, the Decii 
or the Scipios, have not raised in his mind a 
flame of public spirit and private virtue? and 
whether he has not shuddered with horror at the 
proscriptions of Marius and Sylla,at the treachery 
of Theodotus and Achillas, and at the consum¬ 
mate cruelty of an infant king? “ Quis non con¬ 
tra Marii anna, et contra Syllce proscriptionem 
concitatur? Quis non Theodoto , et Achillas , et ipsi 
puerOy non puerile auso facinus, infestus est?’ x 
If all this be a digression, therefore, your lordship 

excuse it. 

II. What has been said concerning the multi- < 
plicity of histories and of historical memorials 
wherewith our libraries abound since the resur¬ 
rection of letters happened and the art of printing 
began, puts me in mind of another general rule, 
that ought to be observed by every man who 
intends to make a real improvement, and to 
become wiser as well as better, by the study of 
history. I hinted at this rule in a former letter, 
where I said that we should neither grope in the ’ 


will be so good as to 









£>TUDY OF HISTORY. 


lOI 


I 


I 

I 

I 

i 

# 

j| 


I 


dark, nor wander in tlie light. History must 
have a certain degree of probability and authen¬ 
ticity, or the examples we lind in it will not carry 
a force sufficient to make due impressions on our 
minds, nor to illustrate nor to strengthen the 
precepts of philosophy and the rules of good 
policy. But besides, when histories have this 
necessary authenticity and probability, there is 
much discernment to be employed in the choice 
and the use we make of them. Some are to be 
read, some are to be studied, and some may be 
neglected entirely, not only without detriment, 
but with advantage. Some are the proper objects 
of one man’s curiosity, some of another’s, and 
some of all men’s; but all history is not an object 
of curiosity for any man; he who improperly, 
wantonly, and absurdly makes it so, indulges a 
sort of canine appetite: the curiosity of one, like 
the hunger of the other, devours ravenously and 
without distinction whatever falls in its way, but 
neither of them digests: they heap crudity upon 
crudity, and nourish and improve nothing but 
their distemper. Some such characters I have 
known, though it is not the most common extreme 
into which men are apt to fall. One of them I 
knew in this country. He joined, to a more than 
athletic strength of body, a prodigious memory; 
and to both a prodigious industry. He had read 
almost constantly twelve or fourteen hours a day, 
for five-and-twenty or thirty years; and had 





102 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


heaped together as much learning as could be 
crowded into one head. In the course of my 
acquaintance with him, I consulted him once or 
twice, not oftener; for I found this mass of learn¬ 
ing of as little use to me as to the owner. The 
man was communicative enough; but nothing 

was distinct in his mind. How could it be other- 

• 

wise? he had never spared time to think, all 
was employed in reading. His reason had not 
the merit of common mechanism. When yon 
press a watch or pull a clock, they'answer your 
question with precision; for they repeat exactly 
the hour of the day, and tell you neither more 1 
nor less than you desire to know. But when you 
asked this man a question, he overwhelmed you, 
by pouring forth all that the several terms or 
words of your question recalled to his memory; 
and if he omitted any thing, it was that very 
thing to which the sense of the whole question 
should have led him and confined him. To ask I 
him a question, was to wind up a spring in his 
memory, that rattled on with vast rapidity and 
confused noise till the force of it was spent; and 
you went away with all the noise in your ears, 
stunned and uninformed. I never left him, that 
I was not ready to say to him, “ Dieu vous fas se 
la grace cle devenir moms savant!** a wish that 
La Mothe le Yayer mentions upon some occasion 
or other, and that he would have done well to 
have applied to himself upon many. 








STUDY OF HISTORY. lo3 

He who reads with discernment and choice, 
will acquire less learning but more knowledge; 
and as this knowledge is collected with design, 
and cultivated with art and method, it will be at 
all times of immediate and ready use to himself 
and others. 

Thus useful arms in magazines we place, 

All rang’d in order, and dispos’d with grace: 

Nor thus alone the curious eye to please; 

But to he found, when need requires, with ease* 

You remember the verses, my lord, in our friend’s 
Essay on Criticism, which was the work of his 
childhood almost; but is such a monument of 
good sense and poetry as no other, that I know, 
has raised in his riper years. 

He who reads without this discernment and 
choice, and, like Bodin’s pupil, resolves to read 
all, will not have time, no nor capacity ncithci, 
to do any thing else: he will not be able to 
think, without which it is impertinent to read; 
nor to act, without which it is impertinent to 
think. He will assemble materials with much 
pains, and purchase them at much expense, and 
have neither leisure nor skill to frame them into 
proper scantlings, or to prepare them for use- 
To what purpose should he husband his time, or 
learn architecture? he has no design to build. 
But then to what purpose all these quarries of 
stone, all these mountains of sand and lime, all 


104 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

these forests of oak and deal ? u Magno im - 
pendio temporum , magna alienarum cturium mo - 
lesticiy laudatio hrec constat y 0 hominem literatum ! 
Simas hoc titulo rusticiore contenti> 0 virum 

honum!” We may add, and Seneca might have 
added in his own style, and according to the 
manners and characters of his own age, another 
title as rustic, and as little in fashion; “ O virum 
sapientia sua simplicem y et simplicitate sua sapi - 
entem : O virum utilem sibi y suis > reipublicce y et 
humano generi ! ,J 

I have said perhaps already, but no matter, it 
cannot he repeated too often, that the drift of 

r 

all philosophy, and of all political speculations, 
ought to be the making us better men and better 
citizens. Those studies, which have no intention 
towards improving our moral characters, have no 
pretence to be styled philosophical: “ Quis est 
enirn ” says Tully in his Offices, u qui nullis 
officii prceceptis tradendis y philosophum se audeat 
dicere ?” Whatever political speculations, instead 
of preparing us to be useful to society, and to 
promote the happiness of mankind, are only 
systems for gratifying private ambition, and pro¬ 
moting private interests at the public expense; 
all such, I say, deserve to be burned, and the 
authors of them to starve, like Machiavel, in a 
jail. • 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 


io5 


t 


LETTER Y. 


I. The great use of history, properly so called, as dis¬ 
tinguished from the writings of mere annalists and 
antiquaries. 

II. Greek and Roman historians. 

III. Some idea of a complete history. 

/ « 

IV. Further cautions to he observed in this study, and 

the regulation of it according to the different pro¬ 
fessions and situations of men ; above all, the use 
to be made of it by divines, and by those who are 
called to the service of their country. 

f % 

I 

I REMEMBER my last letter ended abruptly, 
and a long interval lias since passed, so that the 
thread I had then spun has slipped from me; I will 
try to recover it, and to pursue the task your 
lordship has obliged me to continue. Besides 
the pleasure of obeying your orders, it is like¬ 
wise of some advantage to myself, to recollect my 
thoughts, and resume a study in which I was con¬ 
versant formerly: for nothing can be more true 


STUDY OF HISTORY* 


10G 

than llie saying of Solon reported by Plato, though 
censured by him, impertinently enough, in one 
of his wild books of laws:— u Assidue addiscens,, 
ad senium venio. ” The truth is, the most know¬ 
ing man, in the course of the longest life, will have 
always much to learn, and the wisest and best 
much to improve. This rule will hold in the 
knowledge and improvement to be acquired by 
the study of history; and therefore even he who 
has gone to this school in his youth, should not 
neglect it in his age. “ I read in Livy,” says Mon¬ 
taigne, “what another man does not: and Plutarch 
read there what I do not.” lust so the same man 
may read at fifty what he did not read in the same 
book at five-and-twenty; at least I have found it 
so, by my own experience, on many occasions. 

By comparing, in this study, the experience of 
other men and other ages with our own, we im¬ 
prove both; we analyse, as it were, philosophy: 
we reduce all the abstract speculations of ethics, 
and all the general rules of human policy, to 
their first principles. With these advantages, 
every man may, though few men do, advance 
daily towards those ideas,—those increased es¬ 
sences, a Platonist would say—which no human 
creature can reach in practice, but in the nearest 
approaches to which the perfection of our 
nature consists; because every approach of this 
kind renders a man better and wiser for him¬ 
self, for his family, for the little community of 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 107 

his own country, and for the great community 
of the world. Be not surprised, my lord, at the 
order in which I place these objects : whatever 
order divines and moralists, who contemplate the 
duties belonging to .these objects, may place them 
in, this is the order they hold in nature; and 
I have always thought that we might lead our¬ 
selves and others to private virtue, more effectu¬ 
ally by a due observation of this order, than by 
any of those sublime refinements that pervert it. 

Self-love but serves the virtuous mincl to wake, 

As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake : 

The centre mov’d, a circle straight succeeds; 

Another still, and still another spreads : 

Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; 

His country next, and next all human race. 

So sings our friend Pope, my lord, and so I believe: 
so I shall prove too, if I mistake not, in an epistle 
I am about to write to him, in order to complete 
a sett that were wrote some years ago. 

A man of my age, who returns to the study of 
history, has no time to lose, because he has little 
to live; a man of your lordship’s age has no time 
to lose, because he has much to do; for dilFerent 
reasons, therefore, the same rules will suit us : 
neither of us must grope in the dark, neither of 
us must wander in the light. I have done the 
first formerly a good deal; “ ne verba mihi da- 
rent ur; ne aliquid esse^ in hac recondita anliqui— 


io8 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


tatis sciential magni ac secreti boni judicaremus. 

If you take my word, you will throw none of 
your time awaj^ in the same manner; and I shall 
have the less regret for that which I have mis¬ 
spent, if I persuade you to hasten down from the 
broken traditions of antiquity, to the more entire 
as well as more authentic histories of ages more 
modern. In the study of these we shall find 
many a complete series of events, preceded by 
a deduction of their immediate and remote causes, 
related in their full extent, and accompanied with 
such a detail of circumstances and characters, as 
may transport the attentive reader back to the 
very time, make him a party to the councils, and 
an actor in the whole scene of affairs. Such 
draughts as these, either found in history, or 
extracted by our own application from it, and 
such alone, are truly useful. Thus history 
becomes what she ought to be, and what she 
has been sometimes called, u magistree vitce the 
mistress, like philosophy, of human life; if she i3 
not this, she is at best “ nuntia vetustatis> ” the 
gazette of antiquity, or a dry register of useless 
anecdotes. Suetonius says that Tiberius used to 
inquire of the grammarians, u quce mater Flecu- 
bee? quod A chillis nomen inter virginis fuisset? 
quid Syrenes cantare sint solitas ?” Seneca men¬ 
tions certain Greek authors, who examined very 
accurately, whether Anacreon loved wine or 
women best, whether Sappho was a common 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


tog 

whore, with other points of equal importance ; 
and I make no doubt but that a man, better 
acquainted than I have the honor to be with 
the learned persons of our own country, might 
find some who have discovered several anecdotes 
concerning the giant Albion, concerning Samothes 
the son of Brito, the grandson of Japhet, and con¬ 
cerning Brutus who led a colony into our island 
after the siege of Troy, as the others repeopled 
it after the deluge. But ten millions of such 
anecdotes as these, though they were true; and 
complete authentic volumes of Egyptian or Chal¬ 
dean, of Greek or Latin, of Gallic or British, of 
French or Saxon .records; would be of no value 
in my sense, because of no use towards our 
improvement in wisdom and virtue; if they 
contained nothing more than dynasties and 
genealogies, and a bare mention of remarkable 
events in the order of time, like journals, chro¬ 
nological tables, or dry and meagre annals. 

I say the same of all those modern compo- 
positions, in which we find rather the heads of 
history, than any thing that deserves to be called 
history. Their authors are either abridgers or 
compilers : the first do neither honor to them¬ 
selves nor good to mankind ; for surely the 
abridger is in a form below the translator; and 

the book, at least the history, that wants to be 

' * 

' abridged, does not deserve to be read. They have 
done ancient] y a great deal of hurt, by substi- 


3 10 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


luting many a bad book in the place of a good one; 
and by giving occasion to men, who contented 
themselves with extracts and abridgments, to 
neglect, and, through their neglect, to lose the 
invaluable originals; for which reason I curse 
Constantine Porphyrogenetes as heartily as I do 
Gregory. The second are of some use, as far as 
they contribute to preserve public acts, and dates, 
and the memory of great events. But they who 
are thus employed have seldom the means of 
knowing those private passages on which all 
public transactions depend, and as seldom the 
skill and the talents necessary to put what they 
do know well together : they cannot see the work¬ 
ing of the mine, but their industry collects the 
matter that is thrown out. It is the business, 
or it should be so, of others to separate the pure 
ore from the dross, to stamp it into coin, and 
to enrich not encumber mankind. When there 
are none sufficient to this task, there may be 
antiquaries, and there may be journalists or an¬ 
nalists, but there are no historians. 

It is worth while to observe the progress that 
the Piomans and the Greeks made towards history. 
The Romans had journalists or annalists from the 
very beginning of their state : in the sixth cen¬ 
tury, or very near it at soonest, they began to 
have antiquaries, and some attempts were made 
towards writing of history. I call these first his¬ 
torical productions attempts only, or essays; and 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


Ill 


they were no more, neither among the Romans 
nor among the Greeks. tC Grasci ipsi sic initio scrip - 
titarunt ut noster Cato, ut Pictor, ut Piso.” It is 
Antony, not the triumvir, my lord, but his grand¬ 
father the famous orator, who says this in the 
second book of Tully cle Oratore; he adds after¬ 
wards, “ Itaque qualis apud Grcecos Pherecydes, 
IIellanicus, Acusilaus, aliique pei'multi, talis 
?ioster Cato, etPictor, etPiso.” I know that Antony 
speaks here strictly of defect of style and want 
of oratory; they were “ tantummodo narratores, 
non exornatores,” as lie expresses himself: but as 
they wanted style and skill to write in such a 
manner as might ansAver all the ends of history, 
so they wanted materials. Pherecydes wrote 
something about Iphigenia, and the festivals of 
Bacchus • Hellanicus was a poetical historian, and 
Acusilaus engraved genealogies on plates of brass: 
Pictor, who is called by Livy “ scriptorum anti - 
quissimus, ” published, I think, some short an¬ 
nals of his own time. Neither he nor Piso could 
have sufficient materials for the history of Rome; 
nor Cato, 1 presume, even for the antiquities of 
Italy. The Romans, with the other people of that 
country, were then just rising out of barbarity, 
and growing acquainted with letters ; for those 
that the Grecian colonies might bring into Sicily, 
and the southern parts of Italy, spread little, or 
lasted little, and made in the whole no figure : and 
whatever learning might have flourished among 


112 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


the ancient Etrurians, which was perhaps at most 
nothing better than augury, and divination, and 
superstitious rites, which were admired and cul^ 
tivated in ignorant ages, even that was almost 
entirely worn out of memory. Pedants, who 
would impose all the traditions ol the four first 
ages of Rome for authentic history, have insisted 
much on certain annals, of which mention is 
made in the very place I have just now quoted. 
u Ab initio rerum Romanarurn, ” says the same in¬ 
terlocutor, “ usque ad P.Mucium pontificem maxi - 
mum, res omnes singulorum annorum mandabat 
Uteris pontifex maximus, efferabatque in album, et 
propojiebat tabulam domi, potestas ut essetpopulo 
cognoscendi; idemque etiam nunc annales maximi 
nominantur Rut, my lord, be pleased to take 
notice, that the very distinction I make is made 
here between a bare annalist and an historian : 
u erat historia nihil aliud in these early da}^s, 
a nisi annalium confection Take notice, likewise, 
by the way, that Livy, whose particular appli¬ 
cation it had been to search into this matter, 
affirms positively that the greatest part of all 
public and private monuments, among which he 
specifies these very annals, had been destroyed 
in the sack of Rome by the Gauls ; and Plutarch 
cites Clodius for the same assertion, in the life 
of Numa Pompilius. Take notice, in the last 
place, of that which is more immediately to our 
present purpose: these annals could contain 




STUDY OF HISTORY. 115. 

nothing more than short minutes or memoran¬ 
dums hung up in a table at the pontiff’s house, 
like the rules of the game in a billiard room, and 
much such history as we have in the epitomes 
prefixed to the books of Livy or of any other 
historian, in lapidary inscriptions, or in some 
modern almanacs. Materials for history they 
were, no doubt, but scanty and insufficient; such 
as those ages could produce, when writing and 
reading were accomplishments so uncommon, 
that the praetor was directed by law, cluvum pcm- 
gere> to drive a nail into the door of a temple, 
that the number of years might be reckoned by 
the number of nails: such, in short, as we havo 
in monkish annalists, and other ancient chroni¬ 
clers of nations now in being ; but not such as 
can entitle the authors of them to be called histo¬ 
rians, nor can enable others to write history in 

7 v 

that fulness in which it must be written to be¬ 
come a lesson of ethics and politics. The truth 
is, nations, like men, have their infancy ; and 
the few passages of that time which they retain, 
are not such as deserved most to be remembered, 
but such as, being most proportioned to that age, 
made the strongest impressions on their minds. 
In those nations that preserve their dominion 
long, and grow up to manhood, the elegant as 
well as the necessary arts and sciences are im¬ 
proved to some degree of perfection; and history, 

that was at first intended only to record the 

* 

i 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


n4 

names or perhaps the general characters of some 
famous men, and to transmit in gros the remark¬ 
able events of every age to posterity, is raised 
to answer another and a nobler end. 

II. Thus it happened among the Greeks, hut 
much more among the Romans, notwithstanding 
the prejudices in favor of the former, even 
among the latter. I have sometimes thought that 
Virgil might have justly ascribed to his country¬ 
men the praise of writing history better, as well as 
that of affording the noblest subjects for it, in those 
famous verses * wdiere the different excellencies 
of the two nations are so finely touched* but he 
would have weakened, perhaps, by lengthening, 
and have flattened the climax. Open Herodotus; 
you are entertained by an agreeable storyteller, 
who meant to entertain, and nothing more: read 
Tliucidides or Xenophon; you are taught, indeed, 
as well as entertained ; and the statesman or the 
general, the philosopher or the orator, speaks 
to you in every page : they wrote on subjects on 

* r 

which they were well informed, and they treated 
them fully; they maintained the dignity of 

* Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera. 

Credo equidem : vivos ducent de mannore vultus; 
Orabunt causas melius : coelique meatus 
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent: 

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane memenlo : 

Hae tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem, 

Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 ] 5 

history, and thought it befteath them to vamp 
up old traditions, like the writers of llieir age 
and country, and to be the trumpeters of a lying 
antiquity. The Cyropaedia of Xenophon may be 
objected, perhaps; but if he gave it for a romance 
not an history, as he might for aught we can 
tell, it is out of the case; and if he gave it for 
an history, not a romance, I should prefer his 
authority to that of Herodotus or any other of 
liis countrymen. But however this might be, and 
whatever merit we may justly ascribe to these 
two writers, who were almost single in their kind, 
and who treated but small portions of history; 
certain it is in general, that the levity as well 
as loquacity of the Greeks made them incapable 
of keeping up to the true standard of history; 
and even Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus 
must bow to the great Roman authors : many 
principal men of that commonwealth wrote 
memorials of their own actions and their own 
times; Sylla, Ceesar, Labienus, Pollio, Augustus, 
and others. What writers of memorials, what 
compilers of the materia historica were these? 
what genius was necessary to finish up the pictures 
that such masters had sketched ? Rome afforded 
men that were equal to the task : let the remains 
the precious remains of Sallust, of Livy, and. of 
Tacitus, witness this truth. When Tacitus wrote, 
even the appearances of virtue had been long 
proscribed, and taste was grown corrupt as well 

i 2 





STUDY 03^ HISTORY. 


:li6 

as manners: yet history preserved her inte¬ 
grity and her lustre ; she preserved them in the 
writings of some whom Tacitus mentions ; iir 
none, perhaps, more than his own, every line 
of which outweighs whole pages of such a rhetor 
as Famianus Strada. I single him out among the 
moderns, because lie had the foolish presump¬ 
tion to censure Tacitus, and to write history 
himself; and your lordship will forgive this 
short excursion in honor of a favorite author. 

What a school of private and public virtue had 
been opened to us at the resurrection of learning, 
if the latter historians of the Roman common¬ 
wealth, and the first of the succeeding monarchy, 
had come down to us entire? The few that are 
come down, though broken and imperfect, com¬ 
pose the best body of history that we have; nay, 
the only body of ancient history that deserves to 
be an object of study: it fails us, indeed, most 
at that remarkable and fatal period, where our 
reasonable curiosity is raised the highest. Livy 
employed five-and-forty books, to bring his his¬ 
tory down to the end of the sixth century, and 
the breaking out of the third Punic war; but he 
employed ninety-five to bring it down from thence 
to the death of Brusus; that is, through the course 
of one hundred and twenty or thirty years. Ap- 
pian, Dioncassius, and others, nay even Plutarch 
included, make us but poor amends for what is 
lost of Livy. Among all the adventitious helps by 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 11 7 

which we endeavour to supply this loss in some 
degree, the best are those that we find scattered 
up and down in the works of Tully : his orations, 
particularly, and his letters, contain many curious 
anecdotes and instructive reflections concerning 
the intrigues and machinations that were carried 
on against liberty, from Catiline’s conspiracy to 
Caesar’s. The state of the government, the con¬ 
stitution and temper of the several parties, and 
the characters of the principal persons who 
figured at that time on the public stage, are to be 
seen there in a stronger and truer light than they 
would have appeared, perhaps, if he had wrote 
purposely on this subject, and even in those me¬ 
morials which he somewhere promises Atticus to 
write. u Excudcim aliquod Heraclidlum opus, 
quod latent in thesauris tuisP He would hardly 
have unmasked in such a work, as freely^as in fami¬ 
liar occasional letters, Pompey, Cato, Brutus, nay 
himself; the four men of Rome, on whose praises 
lie dwelt with the greatest complacency. The 
age in which Livy flourished abounded with such 
materials as these : they were fresh, they were 
authentic; it was easy to procure them, it was safe 
to employ them. How he did employ them in 
executing the second part of his design, we may 
judge by his execution of the first; and 1 own to 
your lordship, I should be glad to exchange, if it 
were possible, what we have of this history for 
what we have not. Would you not be glad, my 


11 8 STUDY OF HISTORY. j 

lord, to see in one stupendous draught, the whole 
progress of that government from liberty to ser- j 
vitude ? the whole series of causes and effects, 
apparent and real, public and private ? those 
which all men saw, and all good men lamented ! 
and opposed at the time; and those which were 
disguised to the prejudices, to the partialities of 
a divided people, and even to the corruption of 
mankind, that many did not, and that many 
could pretend they did not, discern them, till it 
was too late to resist them ? I am sorry to say 
it, this part of the Roman story would be not 
only more curious and more authentic than the 
former, but of more immediate and more import¬ 
ant application to the present state of Britain; 
hut it is lost; the loss is irreparable, and your 
lordship will not blame me for deploring it. 

III. They who set up for scepticism may not 
regret the loss of such an history: but this I will 
he bold to assert to them, that an history must be 
wrote on this plan, and must aim, at least, at these 
perfections, or it will answer sufficiently none of 
the intentions of history. That it will not answer 
sufficiently the intention I have insisted upon in 
these letters, that of instructing posterity by the 
example of former ages, is manifest: and I think 
it is as manifest, that an history cannot be said 
even to relate faithfully, and inform us truly, that 
does not relate fully, and inform us of all that is 
necessary to make a true judgment concerning. 












STUDY OF HISTORY. lig 

tlie matters contained in it. Naked facts, without 
the causes that produced them, and the circum¬ 
stances that accompanied them, are not sufficient 
to characterise actions or counsels. The nice 
degrees of wisdom and of folly, of virtue and of 
vice, will not only be undiscoverable in them, 
hut we must be very often unable to determine 
under which of these characters they fall in gene¬ 
ral. The sceptics I am speaking of are, therefore, 
guilty of this absurdity: the nearer an history 
comes to the true idea of history, the better it 
informs ; and the more it instructs us, the more 
worthy to be rejected it appears to them. I have 
said and allowed enough to content any reasonable 
man about the uncertainty of history: I have 
owned that the best are defective ; and I will add 
in this place an observation which did not, I think, 
occur to Hie before. Conjecture is not always 
distinguished perhaps as it ought to be,* so that 
an ingenious writer may sometimes do very 
innocently, what a malicious writer does very 
criminally, as often as he dares and as his malice 
inquires it; he may account for events after they 
have happened, by a system of causes and con¬ 
duct that did not really produce them, though it 
might possibly or even probably have produced 
them. But this observation, like several others, 
becomes a reason for examining and comparing 
authorities, and for preferring some, not for 
rejecting all. Davila, a noble historian surely, and 


120 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

one whom I should not scruple to confess equal 
in many respects to Livy, as I should not scruple 
to prefer his countryman Guicciardin to Thucy¬ 
dides in every respect : Davila, my lord, was 
accused, from the first publication ol his history, 
or at least was suspected, of too much refinement 
and subtility in developing the secret motives of 
actions, in laying the causes of events too deep, 
and deducing them often through a series of 
progression too complicated, and too artislly 
wrought. But yet the suspicious person, who 
should reject this historian upon such general 
inducements as these, would have no grace to 
oppose his suspicions to the authority of the first 
duke of Epernon^ who had been an actor, and a 
principal actor too, in many of the scenes that 
Davila recites. Girard, secretary to this duke, 
and no contemptible biographer, relates, that this 
history came down to the place where the old 
man resided in Gascony, a little before his death; 
that he read it to him, that the duke confirmed 
the truth of the narrations in it, and seemed only 
surprised by what means the author could be so 
well informed of the most secret councils and 
measures of those times. 

IY. I have said enough on this head; and your 
, lordship may he induced, perhaps, by what 
I have said, to think with me, that such histories 
as these, whether ancient or modern, deserve 
alone to be studied. Let us leave the credulous. 








STUDY OF HISTORY. 121 

learned to write history without materials, or to 
study those who do so; to wrangle about ancient 
traditions, and to wring different changes on the 
same set of hells. Let us leave the sceptics in 
modern as well as ancient history, to triumph in 
the notable discovery of the ides of one month 
mistaken for the calends of another, or in the 
various dates and contradictory circumstances 
which they find in weekly gazettes and monthly 
mercuries. Whilst they are thus employed, 
your lordship and I will proceed, if you please, 
to consider more closely than we have yet 
done the rule mentioned above ; that, I mean, 
of using discernment and choice in the study 
of the most authentic history, that of not wan¬ 
dering in the light, which is as necessary as that 
of not groping in the dark. 

Man is the subject of every history; and to know 
him well, we must see him and consider him as 
history alone can present him to us in every age, 
in every country, in every state, in life and in 
death : history, therefore, of all kinds, of civilised 
and uncivilised, of ancient and modern nations; 
in short, of all history that descends to a sufficient 
detail of human actions and characters ; is useful 
to bring us acquainted with our species,—nay, 
with ourselves. To teach and to inculcate the 
general principles of virtue, and the general rules 
of wisdom and good policy, which result from 
such details of actions and characters, comes for 

•» a 


122 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

the most part, and always should come, expressly 
and directly into the design of those who are 
capable of giving such details; and, therefore, 
whilst they narrate as historians, they hint often 
as philosophers: they put into our hands, as it 
were, on every proper occasion, the end of a 
clue, that serves to remind us of searching, and 
to guide us in the search of that truth which the 
example before us either establishes or illustrates. 
If a writer neglects this part, we are able, how¬ 
ever, to supply his neglect by our own attention 
and industry ; and when he gives us a good 
history of Peruvians or Mexicans, of Chinese or 
Tartars, of Mu scovites or Negroes, we may blame 
him; but we must blame ourselves much more, 
if we do not make it a good lesson of philosophy^ 
This being the general use of history, it is not to 
be neglected: every one may make it, who is 
able to read and to reflect on what he reads: and 
every one who makes it will find, in his degree, 
the benefit that arises from an early acquaintance 
contracted in this manner with mankind. We are 
310 1 only passengers or sojourners in this world, 
but we are absolute strangers at the first steps we 
make in it; our guides are often ignorant, often 
unfaithful: by this map of the country, which 
history spreads before us, we may learn, if we 
please, to guide ourselves. In our journey 
through it, we are beset on every side: we are 
besieged, sometimes, even in our strongest holds. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


123 


Terrors and temptations, conducted by the pas¬ 
sions of oilier men, assault us ; and our own 
passions, that correspond with these, betray us. 
History is a collection of the journals of those who 
have travelled through the same country, and 
been exposed to the same accidents; and their 
good and their ill success are equally instructive. 
In this pursuit of knowledge, an immense held is 
open to us; general histories,, sacred and profane; 
the histories of particular countries, particular 
events, particular orders, particular men ; memo¬ 
rials, anecdotes, travels; but we must not ramble 
in this held without discernment or choice, nor 
even with these must we ramble too long. 

As to the choice of authors who have wrote on 
all these various subjects, so much has been said 
by learned men concerning all those that deserve 
attention, and their several characters are so well 
established, that it would be a sort of pedantic 
affectation to lead your lordship through so volu¬ 
minous, and at the same time so easy, a detail. 
I pass it over, therefore, in order to observe, that 
as soon as we have taken this general view of 
mankind, and of the course of human affairs in 
different ages and different parts of the world, we- 
ought to apply, and the shortness of human life 
considered, to confine ourselves almost entirely 
in our study of history, to such histories as have 
an immediate relation to our professions, or to 
our rank and situation in the society to which 


STURDY OF HISTORY. 


12fi 

we belong. Let me instance the'profession of divi¬ 
nity, as the noblest and the most important. 

l. I have said so much concerning the share 
which divines of all religions have taken in the 
corruption of history, that I should have anathe¬ 
mas pronounced against me, no doubt, in the east 
and the west, by the dairo, the mufti, and the 
pope, if these letters were submitted to ecclesi¬ 
astical censure; for surely, my lord, the clergy 
have a better title than the sons of Apollo to be 
called u genus irritcibile vatum What would 
it be, if I went about to show how many of the 
Christian clergy abuse, by misrepresentation and 
false quotation, the history they can no longer 
corrupt? and yet this task would not be even lo 
me, an hard one. But as I mean to speak in this 
place of Christian divines alone, I mean to speak 

of such of them* particularly as may be called 

* 

divines without any sneer; of such of them, for 
some such I think there are, as believe them¬ 
selves, and would have mankind believe ; not for 
temporal but spiritual interest; not for the sake of 
the clergy, but for the sake of mankind. Now it 
has been long matter of astonishment to me, how 
such persons as these could take so much silly 
pains to establish mystery on metaphysics, revela¬ 
tion on philosophy, and matters of fact on abstract 
reasoning? A religion founded on the authority 
of a divine mission, confirmed by prophecies and 
miracles, appeals to facts, and the facts must be 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


120 


proved as all oilier facts that pass for authentic are 
proved; for faith, so reasonable after this proof, 
is absurd before it: if they are thus proved, the 
religion will prevail without the assistance of so 
much profound reasoning: if they are not thus 
proved, the authority of it will sir k in the world, 
even with this assistance. The divines object in 
their disputes with atheists, and they object very 
justly, that these men require improper proofs; 
proofs that are not suited to the nature of'the 
Subject, and then cavil that such proofs are not 
furnished. But what then do they mean,—to fall 
into the same absurdity themselves in their dis¬ 
putes with theists, and to din improper proofs in 
ears that are open to proper proofs? The matter 
is of great moment, my lord; and I make no 
excuse for the zeal which obliges me to dwell a 
little on it. A serious and honest application to 
the study of ecclesiastical history, and every part 
of profane history and chronology relative to it, 
is incumbent on such reverend persons as are 
here spoken of, on a double account: because 
history alone can furnish the proper proofs, that 
the religion they teach is of God; and because the 
unfair manner, in which these proofs have been 
and are daily furnished, creates prejudices, and 
gives advantages against Christianity that require 
to be removed. No scholar will dare to deny, 
that false history, as well as sham miracles, 
has been employed to propagate Christianity 


Ii2fi 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


formerly; and whoever examines the writers of 
cur own age will find the same abuse of history 
continued. Many and many instances of this 
abuse might be produced: it is grown into custom, 
writers copy one another, and the mistake that 
was committed, or the falsehood that was invented 
by one, is adopted by hundreds. 

Abbadie says in his famous book, that the 
gospel of St. Matthew is cited by Clemens, bishop 
of Rome, a disciple of the Apostles; that Barnabas 
cites it in his epistle; that Ignatius and Polycarpe 
receive it; and that the same fathers, that give 
testimony for Matthew, give it likewise for Mark. 
Nay, your lordship will find, I believe, that the 
present bishop of Lotad'on, in his third pastoral 
letter, speaks to th e same effect. I will not trouble 
you nor myself with any more instances of the 
same kind; let this, which occurred to me as I 
was writing, suffice: it may well suffice; for I 
presume the fact advanced by the minister and 
the bishop is a mistake. If the fathers of the 
first century do mention some passages that are 
agreeable to what we read in our evangelists, will 
it follow that these fathers had the same gospels 
before them? To say so is a manifest abuse of 
history, and quite inexcusable in writers that 
knew, or should have known, that these fathers 
made use of other gospels, wherein such passages 
might be contained, or they might be preserved 
in unwritten tradition. Besides which, I could 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 27 

almost venture to affirm that these fathers of the 
first century do not expressly name the gospels we 
have of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To the 
true reasons that have been given why those who 
make divinity their profession, should study his¬ 
tory, particularly ecclesiastical history, with an 
honest and serious application; in order to sup¬ 
port Christianity against the attacks of unbelievers, 
and to remove the doubts and prejudices that the 
unfair proceedings of men of their own order have 
raised in minds candid but not implicit; willing 
to be informed, but curious to examine : to these, 
I say, we may add another consideration, that 
seems to me of no small importance; writers of 
the Roman religion have attempted to show, that 
the text of the holy writ is, on many accounts, 
insufficient to be the sole criterion of orthodoxy ; 
I apprehend too, that they have shown it. Sure 
l am that experience, from the first promulgation 
of Christianity to this hour, shows abundantly 
with how much ease and success the most oppo¬ 
site, the most extravagant, nay the most impious 
opinions, and the most contradictory faiths, may 
be founded on the same text, and plausibly 
defended by the same authority. Writers of the 
reformed religion have erected their batteries 
against tradition; and the only difficulty they had 
to encounter in this enterprise lay in levelling 
and pointing their cannon so as to avoid demo¬ 
lishing, in one common ruin, the traditions they 




128 


STUDY or HISTORY* 


retain, and those they reject. Each side has been 
employed to weaken the cause and explode the 
system of his adversary: and, whilst they have 
been so employed, they have jointly laid their 
axes to the root of Christianity: for thus men will 
he apt to reason upon what they have advanced; 
“ If the text has not that authenticity, clearness, 
and precision, which are necessary to establish it 
as a divine and a certain rule of faith and practice; 
and if the tradition of the church, from the first 
ages of it till the days of Luther and Calvin, has 
been corrupted itself, and has served to corrupt 
the faith and practice of Christians; there remains, 
at this time, no standard at all of Christianity : by 
consecpience, either this religion was not origi¬ 
nally of divine institution, or else God has not 
provided effectually for preserving the genuine 
purity of it, and the gates of hell have actually 
prevailed, in contradiction to his promise, against 
the church.'’ The best effect of this reasoning 
that can be hoped for, is, that men should fall 
into theism, and subscribe to the first proposition: 
he must be worse than an atheist, who can affirm 
the last. The dilemma is terrible, my lord. Party 
zeal and private interest have formed it: the com¬ 
mon interest of Christianity is deeply concerned 
to solve it. Now, I presume, it can never bo 
solved without a more accurate examination, not 
only of the Christian but of the jewisli system, 
than learned men have been hitherto impartial 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 120 

enough and sagacious enough to take, or honest 
enough to communicate. Whilst the authenticity 
and sense of the text of the Bible remain as dis¬ 
putable, and whilst the tradition of the church 
remains as problematical, to say no worse, as 
the immense labors of the Christian divines in 
several communions have made them appear to 
be, Christianity may lean on the civil and eccle¬ 
siastical power, and be supported by the forcible 
influence of education; but the proper force of 
religion, that force which subdues the mind and 
awes the conscience by conviction, will be 
wanting. 

I had reason, therefore, to produce divinity, as 
one instance of those professions that require a 
particular application to the study of some parti¬ 
cular parts of history; and since I have said so 
much on the subject, in my zeal for Christianity, 
I will add this further. The resurrection of 
letters was a fatal period; the Christian system had 

/ N 

been attacked, and wounded too, very severely 
since that time; the defence has been better made, 
indeed, by modern divines, than it had been 
by ancient fathers and apologists: the moderns 
have invented new methods of defence, and have 
abandoned some posts that were not tenable; but 
still there are others, in defending which they 
lie under great disadvantages. Such are various 
facts, piously believed in former times, but on 
which the truth of Christianity has been rested 

• » 


JOO 


STUDY OF HISTORIC 


very imprudently in more enlightened ages \ 
because the falsity of some, and the gross impro¬ 
bability of others, are so evident, that, instead of 
answering the purpose for which they were 
invented, they have rendered the whole tenor of 
ecclesiastical history and tradition precarious, 
ever since a strict but just application of the rules 
of criticism has been made to them. I touch these 
things lightly; but if your lordship reflects upon 
them, you will find reason perhaps to think as I do; 
that it is high time the clergy in all Christian com¬ 
munions should join their forces, and establish 
those historical facts, which are the foundations 
of the whole system, on clear and unquestionable 
historical authority, such as they require in all 
oases of moment from others ; reject candidly^ 
what cannot be thus established; and pursue their 
inquiries in the same spirit of truth through all 
the ages of the church, without any regard to 
historians, fathers, or councils, more than they 
are strictly entitled to on the face of what they 
have transmitted to us on their own consistency, 
and on the concurrence of other authority. Our 
pastors would be thus, I presume, much better 
employed than they generally are. Those of the 
clergy who make religion merely a trade, who 
regard nothing more than the subsistence it 
a fiords them, or in higher life the wealth and 
power they enjoy by the means of it, may say to 
themselves, that it will last their time, or that 


STUDY OF HISTORY* l5l 

policy and reason of state will preserve tlie form 
of a church when the spirit of religion is extinct. 
But those whom I mentioned above, those who 
act for spiritual not temporal ends, and are desi¬ 
rous that men should believe and practise the 
doctrines of Christianity, as well as go to church 
and pay tithes, will feel and own the weight of 
such considerations as these; and agree, that how¬ 
ever the people have been, and may be still 
amused, yet Christianity has been in decay ever 
since the resurrection of letters; and that it can¬ 
not be supported as it was supported before that 
era, nor by any other way than that which I 
propose, and which a due application to the 
study of history, chronology, and criticism, would 
enable our divines to pursue, no doubt, with 
success. 

I might instance, in other professions, the obli¬ 
gation men lie under of applying themselves to 
certain parts of history, and I can hardly forbear 
doing it in that of the law; in its nature the 
noblest and most beneficial to mankind, in its 
abuse and debasement the most sordid and the 
most pernicious. A lawyer now is nothing more, 
I speak of ninety-nine in an hundred at least, to 
use some of Tully’s words, “ nisi leguleius qui - 
dam cautusy et acutus prceco actionum , cantor 
formularum, auceps syllabarum” But there 

have been lawyers that were orators, philoso- 

* 

pliers, historians: there have been Bacons and 

K 2 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


p? 

152 

Clarendons, my lord ; there will be none such 
any more, till, in some better age, true ambition 
or the love of fame prevails over avarice; and till 
men find leisure and encouragement to prepare 
themselves for the exercise of this profession, by 
climbing up to the “ vantage ground,” so my lord 
Bacon calls it, of science; instead of grovelling all 
their lives below, in a mean but gainful appli¬ 
cation to all the little arts of chicane: till this hap¬ 
pen, the profession of the law will scarce deserve 
to be ranked among the learned professions : 
and whenever it happens, one of the vantage 
grounds, to which men must climb, is meta¬ 
physical, and the other historical knowledge : 
they must pry into the secret recesses of the 
human heart, and become well acquainted with 
the whole moral world, that they may discover 
the abstract reason of all laws; and they must 
trace the laws of particular states, especially of 
their own, from the first rough sketches to the 
more perfect draughts; from the first causes or 
occasions that produced them, through all the 
effects, good and bad, that they produced. But 
I am running insensibly into a subject, which 
would detain me too long from one that relates 
more immediately to your lordship, and with 
which I intend to conclude this long letter. 

(a) I pass from the consideration of those pro¬ 
fessions, to which particular parts or kinds of 
history seem to belong ; and 1 come to speak of 



STUDY OF HISTORY. l33 

(lie study of history, as a necessary mean to pre¬ 
pare men for the discharge of that duty which 
they owe to their Country, and which is common 
to all the members of every society that is con¬ 
stituted according to the rules of right reason, and 
with a due regard to the common good. I have 
met, in St. Real’s works, or some other French 
book, with a ridicule cast on private men, who 
make history apolitical study, or who apply them* 
selves in any manner to affairs of state ; but the 
reflection is too general: in governments so ar¬ 
bitrary by their constitution, that the will of the 
prince is not only the supreme but the sole law, 
it is so far from being a duty, that it may be dan¬ 
gerous, and must be impertinent in men, who 
are not called by the prince to the administration 

r 

of public affairs, to concern themselves about it, 
or to lit themselves for it: the sole vocation 
there is the favor of the court; and whatever 
designation God makes by the talents he bestows, 
though it may serve, which it seldom ever does, 
to direct the choice of the prince, yet I presume 
that it cannot become a reason to particular men/ 
or create a duty on them, to devote themselves 
to the public service. Look on the Turkish 
government; see a fellow taken from rowing in a 
common passage-boat, by the caprice of the prince; 
see him invested next day with all the power the 
sol dans took under the caliphs, or the mayors of 
the palace under the successors of Clovis : see 


3 34 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


a whole empire governed by the ignorance,, 
inexperience, and arbitrary will of this tyrant, and 
a few other subordinate tyrants, as ignorant and 
unexperienced as himself. In France, indeed', 
though an absolute government, things go a little 
better : arts and sciences are encouraged, and 
here and there an example may be found of a 
man who has risen by some extraordinary talents, 
amidst innumerable examples of men who have 
arrived at the greatest honors and highest posts 
by no other merit than that of assiduous fawning, . 
attendances, or of skill in some despicable puerile 
amusement ; in training wasps, for instance., to 
take regular flights like hawks, and stoop at flies; 
.The nobility of France, like the children of 
tribute among the ancient Saracens and modern 
t Turks, are set apart for wars: they are bred to 
make love, to hunt and to fight 5 and, if any of 
them should acquire knowledge superior to this, 
they would acquire that which might be preju¬ 
dicial to themselves, but could not become bene¬ 
ficial to their country. The affairs of state are 
trusted to other hands : some have risen to them 
by drudging long in business; some have been 
made ministers almost in the cradle; and the 
whole power of the government has been aban¬ 
doned to others in the dotage of life. There is a 
monarchy, an absolute monarchy too, 1 mean that 
of China, wherein the administration of the 
government is carried on. under the. direction c£ 




STUDY GT HISTORY# l35 

the prince,-ever since the dominion of the Tartars 
lias been established, by several classes of Man¬ 
darins, and according to the deliberation and ad¬ 
vice of several orders of councils ; the admission 
to which classes and orders depends on the 
abilities of the candidates, as their rise in them 
depends on the behaviour they hold, and the im¬ 
provements they make afterwards. Under such 
a government, it is neither impertinent nor ridi¬ 
culous, in any of the subjects who are invited 
by their circumstances, or pushed to it by their 
talents, to make the history of their own and of 
other countries a political study, and to fit them¬ 
selves by this and all other ways for the service 
of the public. It is not dangerous neither; for 
an honor, that outweighs the danger, attends it; 
since private men have a right by the ancient 
constitution of this government, as well as coun¬ 
cils of state, to represent to the prince the abuses 
of his administration : but still men have not 
there the same occasion to concern themselves 
in the affairs of the state, as the nature of a free 
government gives to the members of it. In our 
own country, for in our own the forms of a free 
government at least are hitherto preserved, men 
are not only designed for the public service by 
the circumstances of their situation, and their 
talents, all which may happen in others; but 
they are designed to it by their birth in many 
cases, and in all cases they may dedicate them- 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


l3 6 

selves to this service, and take, in different! 
degrees, some share in it, whether they are 
called to it by the prince or no. In absolute 
governments, all public service is to the prince, 
and he nominates all those that serve the public; 
in free governments, there is a distinct and a 
principal service due to the state: even the 
king, of such a limited monarchy as ours, is but 
the first servant of the people : among his 
subjects, some are appointed by the constitution, 
and others are elected by the people, to carry on 
the exercise of the legislative power jointly with 
him, and to control the executive power inde¬ 
pendently on him. Thus your lordship is bom 
a member of that order of men, in whom a third 
part of the supreme power of the government 
resides; and your right to the exercise of the 
power belonging to this order not being yet 
opened, you are chosen into another body of 
men, who have different power and a different 
constitution; but who possess another third part 
of the supreme legislative authority, for as long 
a time as the commission or trust, delegated to 
them by the people, las Is. Free men, who are 
neither born to the first, nor elected to the last, 
have a right however to complain, to represent, 
to petition, and, I add, even to do more, in cases 
of the utmost extremity: for sure there cannot 
be a greater absurdity, than to affirm that the 
people have a remedy in resistance, when their 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


i5y 

prince attempts to enslave them; but that they 
have none, when their representatives sell them¬ 
selves and them. 

The sum of what I have been saying is, that in 
free governments the public service is not con- 
lined to those whom the prince appoints to 
different posts in the administration under him* 
that there the care of the state is the care of mul¬ 
titudes; that many are called to it in a particular 
manner by their rank, and by other circum¬ 
stances of their situations; and that even those 
whom the prince appoints arc not only answer- 
able to him, hut like him, and before him, to 
the nation, for their behaviour in their several 
posts. It can never be impertinent nor ridicu¬ 
lous, therefore, in such a country, whatever it 
might be in the habit of St. Real’s, which was 
Savoy I think; or in Peru, under the Incas, 
where, Garcilasso de la J' r ega says, it was lawful 
for none but the nobility to study—for men of all 
degrees to instruct themselves in those affairs 
wherein they may be actors, or judges of those 
that act, or controllers of those that judge : on 
the contrary, it is incumbent on every man to 
instruct himself, as well as the means and oppor¬ 
tunities he has will permit, concerning the nature 
and interests of the government, and those 
rights and duties that belong to him, or to his 
superiors, or to his inferiors. This in general; 
but in particular, it is certain that the obligations 


STUDY OF HISTORY, 


i38 

under which we lie to serve our country increase 
in proportion to the ranks we hold, and the other 
circumstances of birth, fortune, and situation*, 
that call us to this service; and, above all, to the 
talents which God has given us to perform it. 

It is in this view, that I shall address to your 
lordship whatever I have further to say on the 
study of history. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


109 


\ 


LETTER YI. 


From what period modern history is peculiarly useful to 
the service of our country, viz. from the end of the 
fifteenth century to the present:—the division of this 
into three particular periods, in order to a sketch of 
the history and state of Europe from that time. 


SINCE tlien you are, my lord, by your birth, 
by the nature of our government, and by the 
talents God has given you, attached for life to 
the service of your country; since genius alone 
cannot enable you to go through this service 
with honor to yourself and advantage to your 
country, whether you support or whether you 
oppose the administrations that arise; since a 
great stock of knowledge, acquired betimes and 
continually improved, is necessary to this end; 
and since one part of this stock must be collected 
from the study of history, as the other part is 
to be gained by observation and experience; 
I come now to speak to your lordship of suck 
history as has an immediate relation to the great 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 


14o 

duty and business of your life, and of the method 
to be observed in this study. The notes I have 
by me, which were of some little use thus far, 
serve me no farther, and I have no books to 
consult: no matter, I slialL be able to explain 
my thoughts without their assistance, and less 
liable to be tedious. I hope to be as full and as 
exact, on memory alone, as the manner in which 
I shall treat the subject requires me to be. 

I say then,, that however closely affairs are 
linked together in the progression of govern¬ 
ments, and how much soever events that follow 
are dependant on those that precede, the whole 
connexion diminishes to the sight as the chain 
lengthens, till at last it seems to be broken; and 

i 

the links that are continued from that point bear 
no proportion nor any similitude to the formeiv 
I would not be understood to speak only of those 
great changes, that are wrought by a concurrence 
of extraordinary events; for instance, the expul¬ 
sion of one nation, the destruction of one govern¬ 
ment, and the establishment of another; but even 
of those that are wrought in the same govern¬ 
ments and among the same people, slowly and 
almost imperceptibly, by the necessary effects of 
time, and flux condition of human affairs. When 
such changes as these happen in several states 
about the same time, and consequently affect 
other states by their vicinity, and by many dif¬ 
ferent relations which they frequently bear to 


STUDY OF HISTORY. l4l 

■one another ; then is one of those periods formed, 
at which the chain spoken of is so broken as to 
have little or no real or visible connexion with 
that which we see continue. A new situation, 
different from the former, begets new interests 
in the same proportion of difference 5 not in this 
or that particular slate alone, but in all those 
that are concerned by vicinity or other relations, 
as I said just now, in one general system of 
policy. New interests beget new maxims of 
government, and new methods of conduct* these, 
in their turns, beget new manners, new habits, 
new customs: the longer this new constitution 
of affairs continues, the more will this difference 
increase; and although some analogy may remain 
long between what preceded and what succeeded 
such a period, yet will this analogy soon become 
an object of mere curiosity, not of profitable 
inquiry. Such a period, therefore, is, in the true 
sense of the words, an epocha or an era, a point 
of time at which you stop, or from which you 
reckon forward: I say forward, because we are 
not to study in the present case, as chronologers 
compute, backward. Should we persist to carry 
our researches much higher, and to push them 
even to some other period of the same kind, we 
should misemploy our time ; the causes then laid 
having spent themselves, the series of effects de¬ 
rived from them being over, and our concern in 
both consequently at an end. But a new system 


142 study of history, 

of causes and effects that subsists in our time, 
and whereof our conduct is to be a part, arising 
at the last period, and all that passes in our time 
being dependant on what has passed since that 
period, or being immediately relative to it, we 
are extremely concerned to be well informed 
about all those passages. To be entirely ignorant 
about the ages that precede this era would be 
shameful; nay, some indulgence may be had to 
a temperate curiosity in the review of them ; but 
to be learned about them, is a ridiculous affecta¬ 
tion in any man, who means to be useful to the 
present age. Down to this era, let us read history* 
from this era, and down to our own time, let us 
study it. 

The end of the fifteenth century seems to be 
just such a period as I have been describing, for 
those who live in the eighteenth, and who inhabit 
the western parts of Europe. A little before, or 
a little after this point of time, all those events 
happened, and all those revolutions began, that 
have produced so vast a change in the manners, 
customs and interests of particular nations, and 
in the whole policy, ecclesiastical and civil, of 
these parts of the world. I must descend here 
into some detail, not of histories, collections, or 
memorials, for all these are well enough known ; 
and though the contents are in the heads of few, 
the books are in the hands of many: but instead 
of showing your lordship where to look, I shall 


STUDY OF HISTORY* 


i43 


•contribute more to your entertainment and in¬ 
struction, by marking out, as well as my memory 
will serve me to do it, wliat you are to look for; 
and by furnishing a kind of clue to your studies. 
I shall give, according to custom, the first place 
lo religion. 


i44 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


A VIEW 

OF 

THE ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT 

OF EUROPE 

/ 

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH 

CENTURY. 


Observe then, my lord, that the demolition 
of the papal throne was not attempted with suc¬ 
cess till the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
If you are curious to cast your eyes back, you 
will find Berenger in the eleventh, who was soon 
silenced; Arnold us in the same, who was soon 
hanged; Valdo in the twelfth, and our Wickliff in 
the fourteenth, as well as others, perhaps, whom 
I do not recollect. Sometimes the doctrines of 
the church were alone attacked, and sometimes 
the doctrine, the discipline, and the usurpations 
of the pope: but little fires, kindled in corners 
of a dark world, were soon stifled by that great 
abettor of Christian unity, the hangman. When 
they spread and blazed out, as in the case of the 
Albigeois and of the Hussites, armies were raised 
to extinguish them by torrents of blood; and 


STUDY 03? DrSTORY*. l45 

Snell saints as Dominic, with the crucifix in tlieir 
hands, instigated the troops to the utmost bar¬ 
barity. Your lordship will find that the church 
of Rome was maintained by such charitable and 
salutary means, among others, till the period 
spoken of; and you will be curious, I am sure, 
to inquire how this period came to be more fatal 
to her than any former conjuncture. A multi¬ 
tude of circumstances, which you will easily 
trace in the histories of the fifteenth and six¬ 
teenth centuries, to go no farther back, concurred 
to bring about this great event: and a multitude 
of others as easy to be traced, concurred to hinder 
the demolition from becoming total, and to prop 
the tottering fabric. Among these circumstances, 
there is one less complicated* and more obvious 
than others, which was of principal and universal 
influence. The art of printing had been invented 
about forty or fifty years before the period we 
fix; from that time, the resurrection of letters 
hastened on apace, and at this period they had 
made great progress, and were cultivated with 
great application. Mahomet the second drove 
them out of the east into the west, and the popes 
proved worse politicians than the mufties in this 
respect. Nicholas the fifth encouraged learning 
and learned men: Sixtus the fourth was, if I 
mistake not, a great collector of books at least: 
and Leo the tenth was the patron of every art 
and science. The magicians themselves broke 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


146 

the charm' by which they had hound mankind 
for so many ages; and the adventure of that 
knight-errant, who, thinking himself happy in 
the arms of a celestial nymph, found that he 
tvas the miserable slave of an infernal hag, was 
in some sort renewed. As soon as the means of 
acquiring and spreading information grew com¬ 
mon, it is no wonder that a system was unra¬ 
velled, which could not have been woven with 
success in any ages but those of gross ignorance 
and credulous superstition. I might point out 
to your lordship many other immediate causes, 
some general like this that I have mentioned, and 
Some particular. The great schism, for instance, 
that ended in the beginning of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury, and ill the council of Constance, had occa¬ 
sioned prodigious scandal. Two or three vicars 
of Christ, two or three infallible heads of the 
church, roaming about the world at a time, fur¬ 
nished matter of ridicule as well as scandal; and 
whilst they appealed, for so they did in effect, to 
the laity, and reproached and excommunicated 
one another, they taught the world what to think 
of the institution as well as exercise of the papal 
authority. The same lesson was taught by the 
council of Pisa that preceded, and by that of 
Basle that followed, the council of Constance. 
The horrid crimes of Alexander the sixth, the 
saucy ambition of Julius the second, the im¬ 
mense profusion and scandalous exactions of Leo 


STUDY OF HISTORY. l\n 

the lentil; all these events and characters, fol¬ 
lowing in a continued series from the beginning 
cl one century, prepared the way for the revo¬ 
lution that happened in the beginning of the 
next. The state of Germany, the state of Eng¬ 
land, and that of the North, were particular 
causes, in these several countries, of this revo¬ 
lution. Such were many remarkable events that 
happened about the same time, and a little before 
it, in these and in other nations; and such were 
likewise the characters of many of the princes 
of that age, some of whom favored the reforma¬ 
tion, like the elector of Saxony, on a principle 
of conscience ; and most of whom favored it, just 
as others opposed it, on a principle of interest. 
This your lordship will discover manifestly to 
have been the case; and the sole difference you 
will find between Henry the eighth and Francis 
the first, one of whom separated from the pope, 
as the other adhered to him, is this: Ilenrv the 
eighth divided, with the secular clergy and his 
people, the spoil of the pope and his satellites 
the monks; Francis the first divided, with the 
pope, the spoil of his clergy, secular and regular, 
and of his people. With the same impartial eye 
that your lordship surveys the abuses of religion, 
and the corruptions of the church as well as 
court of Rome, which brought on lire reforma¬ 
tion at this period ; you will observe the cliarac- 

L 2 


i 


148 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


ters and conduct of those who began, who pro-* 
pagated, and who favored the reformation: and 
from your observation of these, as well as of 
the unsystematical manner in which it was car¬ 
ried on at the same time in various places, and of 
the want of concert, nay even of charity, among 
the reformers, you will learn what to think of 
the several religions that unite in their oppo¬ 
sition to the Roman, and yet hate one another 
most heartily; what to think of the several sects 
that have sprouted, like suckers, from the same 
great roots; and what the true principles are of 
protestant ecclesiastical policy. This policy had 
no being till Luther made his establishment in 
Germany; till Zwinglius began another in Swit¬ 
zerland, which Calvin carried on, and, like 
Americus Yesputius who followed Christopher 
Columbus, robbed the first adventurer of his 
honor; and till the reformation in our country 
was perfected under Edward the sixth and Eli¬ 
zabeth. Even popish ecclesiastical policy is no 
longer the same since that era. His holiness is 
no longer at the head of the whole western 
church; and to keep the part that adheres to 
him, he is obliged to loosen their chains and to 
lighten his yoke. The spirit and pretensions of 
his court are the same, but not the power: he 
governs by expedient and management more, 
and by authority less : his decrees and his briefs 


STUDY OF HISTORY. l4q 

are in danger of being refused, explained away, 
or evaded, unless lie negociales tlieir acceptance 
before lie gives them, governs in concert with 
liis flock, and feeds his sheep according to their 
humour and interest: in short, liis excommuni¬ 
cations, that made the greatest emperors tremble, 
are despised by the lowest members of his own 
communion; and the remaining attachment to 
him has been, from this era, rather a political 
expedient to preserve an appearance of unity, 
than a principle of conscience; whatever some 
bigotted princes may have thought, whatever 
ambitious prelates and hireling scribblers may 
have taught, and whatever a people, worked up 
to enthusiasm by fanatical preachers, may have 
acted. Proofs of this would be easy to draw, 
not only from the conduct of such princes as 
Ferdinand the first and Maximilian the second, 
who could scarce be esteemed papists though 
they continued in the pope’s communion, but 
even from that of princes who persecuted their 
protestant subjects with great violence. Enough 
has been said, I think, to show your lordship 
how little need there is of going up higher than 
the beginning of the sixteenth century in the 
study of history, to acquire all the knowledge 
necessary at this time in ecclesiastical policy, or 
in civil policy as far as it is relative to this. 
Historical monuments of this sort are in every 


i5o 


STUDY or HISTORY. 


man’s hand, ilie facts are sufficiently verified, ami 
the entire scenes lie open to our observation : 
even that scene of solemn refined banter exhi¬ 
bited in the council of Trent, imposes on no 
man who reads Paolo, as well as Pa'llavicini, ami 
the letters of Vargas. 








I 


< 


\ 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 



A VIEW 

» 

OF 

THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF EUROPE 


IN 


THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 


I. IN FRANCE. 

A very little higher need we go, to observe 
those great changes in the .civil constitutions of 
the principal nations of Europe, in the partition 
of power among them, and by consequence in 
the whole system of European policy, which 
have operated so strongly for more than two 
centuries, and which operate still. I will not 
affront the memory of our Henry the seventh so 
much as to compare him to Lewis the eleventh; 
and yet I perceive some resemblance between 
them, which would, perhaps, appear greater, if 
Philip of Commines had wrote the history of 
Henry as well as that of Lewis; or if my lord 
Bacon had wrote that of Lewis as well as that 
of Henry. This prince came to the crown of 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


3 52 

England a little before llie close of the fifteenth? 
century, and Lewis began his reign in France 
about twenty years sooner. These reigns make 
remarkable periods in the histories of both 
nations: to reduce the power, privileges, and 
possessions of the nobility, and to increase the 
weal ill and authority of the crown, was the 
principal object of both: in this their success 
was so great, that the constitutions of the two 
governments have had, since that time, more 
resemblance, in name and in form than in reality, 
to the constitutions that prevailed before. Lewis 
the eleventh was the first, say the French, u qui 
mit les rois hors de page the independency of 
the nobility had rendered the state of his prede¬ 
cessors very dependent, and their power preca¬ 
rious; they were the sovereigns of great vassals; 
but these vassals were so powerful, that one of 
them was sometimes able, and two or three of 
them always, to give law to the sovereign. Before 
Lewis came to the crown, the English had been 
driven out of their possessions in France, by the 
poor character of Henry the sixth, the domestic 
troubles of his reign, and the defection of the 
house of Burgundy from his alliance, much more 
than by the ability of Charles the seventh, who 
seems to have been neither a greater hero nor 
a greater politician than Henry the sixth; and 
even then by the vigor and union of the French 
nobility in his service. After Lewis came to the 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


l53 


crown, Edward the fourth made a show of car¬ 
rying the war again into France, but he soon 
returned home ; and your lordship will not be 
at a loss to find much better reasons for his doing 
so, in the situation of his affairs and the characters 
of his allies, than those which Philip of Commines 
draws from the artifice of Lewis, from his good 
cheer, and his pensions. Now from this time, 
our pretensions on France were in effect given 
up; and Charles the Bold, the last prince of the 
ho use of Burgundy, being killed, Lewis had no 
vassal able to molest him: he reunited the duchy 
of Burgundy and Artois to his crown, he acquired 
Provence by gift, and his son Britanny by mar¬ 
riage; and thus France grew, in the course of a 
few years, into that great and compact body which 
we behold at this time. The history of France, 
before this period, is like that of Germany, a 
complicated history of several states and several 
interests; sometimes concurring like members of 
the same monarchy, and sometimes warring on 
one another : since this period, the history of 
France is the history of one state under a more 
uniform and orderly government; the history of 
a monarchy wherein the prince is possessor of 
some, as w r ell as lord of all, the great fieffees; and 
the authority of many tyrants centering in one, 
though the people are not become more free, yet 
tiie whole system of domestic policy is entirely 
changed; peace at home is better secured, and 


154 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


the nation grown fitter to carry war abroad. 
The governors of great provinces and of strong 
fortresses have opposed their king, and taken 
arms against his authority and commission since 
that time ; but yet there is no more resemblance 
between the authority and pretensions of these 
governors, or the nature and occasions of these 
disputes, and the authority and pretensions of 
the vassals of the crown in former days, or the 
nature and occasions of their disputes with, the 
prince and with one another, than there is between 
the ancient and the present peers of France. In 
a word, the constitution is so altered, that any 
knowledge we can acquire about it, in the history 
that precedes this period, will serve to 1 iltie pur¬ 
pose in our study of the history that follows if, 
and to less purpose still in assisting us to judge 
of what passes in the present age. The kings 
of France since that time, more masters at home, 
have been able to exert themselves more abroad : 
and they began to do so immediately; for Charles 
the eighth, son and successor of Lewis the 
eleventh, formed great designs of foreign cun- 
quests, though they were disappointed by his 
inability, by the levity of the nation, and by 
other causes. Lewis the twelfth and Francis 
the first, but especially Francis, meddled deep 
in the affairs of Europe : and though the superior 
genius of Ferdinand called the Catholic, and the 
star of Charles the fifth prevailed against them, 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 55 

yet tlie efforts they made, sliow sufficiently how 
the strength and importance of this monarchy 
were increased in their time. From whence 
we may date likewise the rival ship of the house 
of France, for we may reckon that of Valois 
and that of Bourbon as one upon this occasion, 
and the house of Austria: that continues at this 
dav, and that has cost so much blood and so 
much treasure in tire course of it. 




\ 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 



II. IN ENGLAND. 


! ■ • • 

Though the power and influence of tlie nobility 
sunk in the great change that began under Henry 
the seventh in England, as they did in that which 
began under Lewis the eleventh in France, yet 
llie new constitutions that these changes pro¬ 
duced were very different. In France the lords 
alone lost, the king alone gained; the clergy held 
their possessions and their immunities, and the 
people remained in a state of mitigated slavery. 
But in England the people gained as well as the 
crown. The commons had already a share in the 
legislature; so that the power and influence of 
the lords being broke by Henry the seventh, 
and the property of the commons increasing by 
the sale that his son made of church lands, the 
power of the latter increased of course by this 
change in a constitution, the forms whereof were 
favorable to them. The union of the roses put 
an end to the civil wars of York and Lancaster, 
that had succeeded those we commonly call the 
barons wars; and the humour of warring in 
France, that had lasted near four hundred years 
under the Normans and Plantagenets, for plunder 
as well as conquest, was spent. Our temple of 


STUDY OF HISTORY. IO 7 

Janus was shut by Henry the seventh. Wo 
neither laid waste our own nor other countries 
any longer; and wise laws and a wise govern¬ 
ment changed insensibly the manners, and gave 
a new turn to the spirit of our people. We were 
no longer the free-booters we had been. Our 
nation maintained her reputation in arms, when¬ 
ever the public interest or the public authority 
required it; but war ceased to be, what it had 
been, our principal and almost our sole profession : 
the arts of peace prevailed among us; we be¬ 
came husbandmen, manufacturers and merchants, 
and we emulated neighbouring nations in litera¬ 
ture. It is from this time that we ought to study 
the history of our country, my lord, with the 
utmost application. We are not much concerned 
to know with critical accuracy what were the 
ancient forms of our parliaments, concerning 
which, however, there is little room for dispute 
from the reign of Henry the third at least; nor 
in short the whole system of our civil constitution 
before Henry the seventh, and of our ecclesias¬ 
tical constitution before Henry the eighth. But 
he who has not studied and acquired a thorough 
knowledge of them both, from these periods 
down to the present time, in all the variety of 
events by which they have been affected, will bo 
very unfit to judge or to take care of either. 
Just as little are we concerned to know, in any 
nice detail, what the conduct of our princes, 


STUDY or HISTORY. 


j 58 

relatively to their neighbours on the continent^ 
was before this period, and at a time when the 
partition of power and a multitude of other 
circumstances rendered the whole political sys¬ 
tem of Europe so vastly different from that which 
has existed since. But lie who has not traced 
this conduct from the period we fix, down to 
the present age, wants a principal part of the 
knowledge that every English minister of state 
should have. Ignorance in the. respects here 
spoken of is tlie less pardonable, because we have 
more and move authentic means of information 
concerning this, than concerning any other 
period. Anecdotes enough to glut the curiosity 
of some persons, and to silence all the captious 
cavils of others, will never he furnished by any 
portion of history; nor indeed can they, accor¬ 
ding to the nature and course of human affairs: 
hut he who is content to read and observe, like a 
senator and a statesman, will find in our own and 
in foreign historians as much information as he 
wants, concerning the affairs of our island, her 
fortune at home, and her conduct abroad, from 
the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. I refer 
to foreign historians, as well as to our own, for 
this series of our own history; not only because 
it is reasonable to see in what manner the histo¬ 
rians of other countries have related the transac¬ 
tions wherein we have been concerned, and 
what judgment they have made of our conduct, 


STUDY OF HrsTODY. 


15g 

domestic and foreign, but for another reason like¬ 
wise. Our nation has furnished as ample and as 
important matter, good and bad, for history, as 
any nation under the sun; and yet we must yield 
the palm in writing history most certainly to the 
Italians and to the French, and, I fear, even to 
the Germans. The only two pieces of history we 
have, in any respect to be compared with the 
ancient, are, the reign of Henry the seventh by 
my lord Bacon, and the history of our civil war 
in the last century by your noble ancestor my 
lord chancellor Clarendon. But we have no 
general history to be compared with some of 
other countries: neither have we, which I lament 
much more, particular histories, except the two 
I have mentioned, nor writers of memorials nor 
collectors of monuments and anecdotes, to vie in 
number or in merit with those that foreign 
nations can boast; from Commines, Guicciardin, 
Du Bel lay, Paolo, Davila, Thuanus, and a mul¬ 
titude of others,, down through the whole period 
that I propose to your lordship. But although 
this be true, to our shame, yet it is true likewise 
that we want 110 necessary means of information. 
They ] ie open to our industry and our discern¬ 
ment. Foreign writers are, for the most part, 
scarce worth reading, when they speak of our 
domestic affairs: nor are our English writers, for 
the most part, of greater value, when they speak 
of foreign affairs. In this mutual defect, the 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


l6o 

writers oF others countries are, I think, more 
excusable than ours: for the nature of our 
government, the political principles in which 
we are bred, our distinct interests as islanders, 
and the complicated various interests and 
humours of our parties, all these are so peculiar 
to ourselves, and so different from the notions, 
manners, and habits of other nations, that it is 
not wonderful they should be puzzled or should 
fall into error, when they undertake to give rela¬ 
tions of events that result from all these, or to 
pass any judgment upon them. But as these 
historians are mutually defective, so they mu¬ 
tually supply each other's defects: we must 
compare them, therefore, make use of our dis¬ 
cernment, and draw our conclusions from both. 
If we proceed in this manner, we have an ample 
fund of history in our power, from whence to 
collect sufficient authentic information; and we 
must proceed in this manner, even with our own 
historians of different religions, sects, and parties, 
or run the risk of being misled by domestic 
ignorance and prejudice in this case, as well as 
foreign ignorance and prejudice in the other. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. iGl 


III. IN SPAIN AND THE EMPIRE. 


Spain figured little in Europe till the latter part 
of the fifteenth century; till Castile and Arragon 
were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, till the total expulsion of the Moors, and 
till the discovery of the West Indies. After this, 
not only Spain took a new form, and grew into 
immense power, but the heir of Ferdinand and 
Isabella being heir likewise of the houses of 
Burgundy and Austria, such an extent of dominion 
accrued to him by all these successions, and such 
an addition of rank and authority by his election 
to the empire, as no prince had been master of in 
Europe from the days of Charles tlie Great. It is 
proper to observe here, how the policy of the 
Germans al tered in the choice of an emperor, be¬ 
cause the effects of this alteration have been great. 
When Rodolphus of Hapsburgh was chose in the 
year one thousand two hundred and seventy, or 
about that time, the poverty and the low estate 
of this prince, who had been marshal of the court 
to a king of Bohemia, was an inducement to elect 
him : the disorderly and lawless state of the empire 
made the princes of it, in those days, unwilling 
to have a more powerful head. But a contrary 

M 



STUDY OF HISTORY. 


162 

maxim took place at this era: Charles the fifth and 
Fi \incis the first, the two most powerful princes 
of Europe, were the sole candidates; for the elector 
of Saxony, who is said to have declined, was rather 
unable to stand in competition with them : and 
Charles was chosen by the unanimous suffrages of 
the electoral college, if I mistake not. Another 
Charles, Charles the fourth, who was made em¬ 
peror illegally enough on the deposition of Lewis 
of Bavaria, and about one hundred and fifty years 
before, seems to me to have contributed doubly 
to establish this maxim; by the wise constitutions 
that he procured to pass, that united the empire 
in a more orderly form and better system of go¬ 
vernment; and by alienating the imperial reve¬ 
nues to sucli a degree, that they were no longer 
sufficient to support an emperor who had not 
great revenues of his own. The same maxim and 
other circumstances have concurred to keep the 
empire in this family ever since, as it had been 
often before; and this family having large domi¬ 
nions in the empire, and larger pretensions, as 
well as dominions, out of it, the other stales of 
Europe, France, Spain, and England particularly, 
liave been more concerned since this period in the 
affairs of Germany, than they were before it: and, 
by consequence, the history of Germany, from the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, is of impor¬ 
tance, and a necessary part of that knowledge 
which your lordship desires to acquire. 


study op History. 


/S r* 

^ ibo 

The Dutch commonwealtli was not formed till 
near a century later: but as soon as it was 
formed, nay even whilst it was forming, these 
provinces, that were lost to osbervation among 
the many that composed the dominions of Bur¬ 
gundy and Austria, became so considerable a part 
of the political system of Europe, that their 
history must be studied by every man who 
would inform himself of this system. 

Soon after this state had taken being, others of 
a more ancient original began to mingle in those 
disputes and wars, those councils, negotiations, 
and treaties, that are to be the principal objects of 
your lordship’s application in the study of history. 
That of the northern crowns deserves your at¬ 
tention little, before the last century. Till the 
election of Frederick the first to the crown of 
Denmark, and till that wonderful revolution which 
the first Gustavus brought about in Sweden, it is 
nothing more than a confused rhapsody of events, 
in which the great kingdoms and states of Europe 
neither had any concern nor took any part. From 
the time I have mentioned, the northern crowns 
have turned their councils and their arms often 
southwards, and Sweden particularly, with prodi¬ 
gious effect. 

To what purpose should I trouble your lord- 
ship with the mention of histories of other nations? 
they are either such as have no relation to the 
knowledge you would acquire, like that of the 

M 2 

' 

/ 




STUDY OF HTSTOIlY, 


i6i 

Poles, the Muscovites, or the Turks ; or they are 
such as having an occasional or a secondary rela¬ 
tion to it, fall of course into your scheme; like 
tlie history of Italy, for instance^ which is some¬ 
times a part of that of France, sometimes of that 
of Spain, and sometimes of that of Germany. The 
thread of history that you are to keep, is that 
of the nations who are, and must always be, con¬ 
cerned in the same scenes of action with your 
own ; these are the principal nations of the west. 
Things that have no immediate relation to your 
own country, or to them, are either too remote 
or too minute to employ much of your time: 
and their history and your own is, for all your 
purposes, te whole his t ory of Europe. 

The two great powers, that of France and that 
of Austria, being formed, and a rivalship esta¬ 
blished by consequence between them ; it began 
to be the interest of their neighbours to oppose the 
strongest and most enterprising of the two, and 
to be the ally and friend of the weakest. From 
lienee arose the notion of a balance of power in 
Europe, on the equal poise of which the safety 
and tranquillity of all must depend. To destroy 
the equality of this balance has been the aim of 
each of these rivals in his turn ; and to hinder it 
from being destroyed, by preventing too much 
power from falling into one scale, has been the 
principle of all the wise councils of Europe, rela¬ 
tive to France and to the house of Austria. 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 165 

ill rough the whole period that began at the era 
we have fixed, and subsist at this hour. To make 
a careful and just observation, therefore, of the 
rise and decline of these powers, in the two last 
centuries and in the present; of the projects which 
their ambition formed ; of the means they em¬ 
ployed to carry these projects on with success ; 
of the means employed by others to defeat them ; 
of the issue of all these endeavours in War and in 
negociation; and particularly, to bring your ob¬ 
servations home to your own country and your 
own use, of the conduct that England held, to her 
honor or dishonor, to her advantage or disad¬ 
vantage, in every one of the numerous and 
important conjunctures that happened—ought 
to be the principal subject of your lordship’s 
attention, in reading and reflecting on this part 
of modern history. 

Now to this purpose you will find it of great use, 
my lord, when you have a general plan of the 
history in your mind, to go over the whole again 
in another method; which I propose to be this. 
Divide the entire period into such particular 
periods as the general course of affairs will mark 
out to you sufficiently, b}^ the rise of new con¬ 
junctures, of different schemes of conduct, and of 
different theatres of action : examine this pe¬ 
riod of history as you would examine a tragedy 
or a comedy; that is, take first the idea or a ge¬ 
neral notion of the whole; and after that examine 

. 









lG6 STUDY OU HISTOR Y. 

/ 

every act and every scene apart: consider (lienr 
in themselves, and consider them relatively to one 
another. Read this history as you would that 
of any ancient period; hut study it afterwards, as 
it would not be worth your while to study 
the other; nay as you could not have in your 
power the means of studying the other, if the 
study was really worth your while. The former 
part of this period abounds in great historians y 
and the latter part is so modern, that even tra¬ 
dition is authentic enough to supply the want of 
good history, if we are curious to inquire, and if 
we hearken to the living with the same impar¬ 
tiality and freedom of judgment as we read the 
dead: and he that does one will do the other. The 
whole period abounds in memorials, in collections 
of public acts and monuments, of private letters, 
and of treaties. All these must come into your 
plan of study, my lord; many not to be read 
through, but all to be consulted and compared. 
They must not lead you, I think, to your 
inquiries, but your inquires must lead you to 
them. By joining history and that which we call 
the materia historica together in this manner, 
and by drawing your information from both, 
your lordship will acquire not only that know¬ 
ledge, which many have in some degree, of the 
great transactions that have passed, and the great 
events that have happened in Europe during 
this period, and of their immediate and obvious. 











STUDY OF HISTORY. 


3 67 

causes and consequences; but your lordship will 
acquire a much superior knowledge, and such a 
one as very few men possess almost in any 
degree, a knowledge of the true political system 
of Europe during this time. You will see it in 
its primitive principles, in the constitutions of 
governments, the situations of countries, their 
national and true interests, the characters and 
the religion of people, and other permanent 
circumstances. You will trace it through all its 
fluctuations, and observe how the objects vary 
seldom, but the means perpetually, according to 
the different characters of princes and of those 
who govern; the different abilities of those who 
serve; the course of accidents, and a multitude 
of other irregular and contingent circumstances. 

The particular periods into which the whole 
period should be divided, in my opinion, are 
these :—1. from the fifteenth to the end of the 
sixteenth century :—2. from thence to the Pyre¬ 
nean treaty :— 3 . from thence down to the present 
time. 

Your lordship will find this division as apt 
and as proper, relatively to the particular histo¬ 
ries of England, France, Spain, and Germany, 
the principal nations concerned, as it is relatively 
to the general history of Europe. 

The death of queen Elisabeth, and the acces¬ 
sion of king James the first, made a vast alteration 
in the government of our nation at home, aiul 


l68 STUDY OF HISTORY. 

in her conduct abroad, about the end of the 
first of these periods. The Avars that religion 
occasioned, and ambition fomented in Fiance, 
through the reigns of Francis the second, Charles 
the ninth, Henry the third, and a part of Henry 
the fourth, ended ; and the furies of the league 
were crushed by this great prince, about the same 
time. Philip the second of Spain marks this 
period likewise by his death, and by the exhausted 
condition in which he left the monarchy he 
governed ; which took the lead no longer in 
disturbing the peace of mankind, but acted a 
second part in abetting the bigotry arid ambition 
of Ferdinand the second and the third. The 
thirty years war that devastated Germany did not 
begin till the eighteenth year of the seventeenth 
century, but the seeds of it were sowing some 

I v « 

time before; and even at the end of the sixteenth, 
Ferdinand the hrst and Maximilian had slioAvn 
much lenity and moderation in the disputes and 
troubles that arose an account of religion. Under 
Rodolphus and Matthias, as the succession of their 
cousin Ferdinand approached, the fires that were 
covered began to smoke and to sparkle; and if 
the war did not begin with this century, the 
preparation for it and the expectation of it 
did. 

The second period ends in one thousand six 
hundred and sixty, the year of the restoration 
of Charles the second to the throne of England: 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 1 69 

when our civil wars, and all the disorders which. 
Cromwells usurpation had produced, were over; 
and therefore a remarkable point of time, with 
respect to our country: it is no less remarkable 
with respect to Germany, Spain, and France. 

As to Germany : the ambitious projects of the 
German branch of Austria had been entirely 
defeated, the peace of the empire had been re¬ 
stored, and almost a new constitution formed, or 
an old one revived, by the treaties of Westphalia: 
nay the imperial eagle was not only fallen, but 
her wings were clipped. 

As to Spain: the Spanish branch was fallen as 
low twelve years afterwards, that is, in the year 
one thousand six hundred and sixty. Philip the 
second left his successors a ruined monarchy; 
he left them something worse; he left them his 
example and his principles of government, 
founded in ambition, in pride, in ignorance, in 
bigotry, and all the pedantry of state. I have 
read somewhere or other, that the war of the Low 
Countries alone cost him, by his own confession, 
live hundred and sixty-four millions; a prodigious 
sum, in what species soever he reckoned. Philip 
the third and Philip the fourth followed his 
example and his principles of government, at 
home and abroad: at home, there was much 
form, but no good order, no economy nor 
wisdom of policy in the state. The church 
continued to devour the slate, and that monster 


170 STUDY OF HISTORY, 

the inquisition to dispeople the country, even 
more than perpetual war, and all the numerous 
colonies that Spain had sent to the West Indies : 
for your lordship will find that Philip the 
third drove more than nine hundred thousand 
Moriscoes out of his dominions by one edict, with 
such circumstances of inhumanity in the execu¬ 
tion of it, as Spaniards alone could exercise, and 
that tribunal, who had provoked this unhappy 
race to revolt, could alone approve : abroad, the 
conduct of these princes was directed by the same 
wild spirit of ambition; rash in undertaking, 
though slow to execuie, and obstinate inpursuin 
though unable to succeed, they opened a new si nice 
to let out the little life and vigor that remained 
in their monarchy. Philip the second is said to 
have been piqued against his uncle Ferdinand, 
for refusing to yield the empire to him on the 
abdication of Charles the fifth: certain it is, that 
as much as he loved to disturb the peace of man¬ 
kind, and to meddle in every quarrel that had the 
appearance of supporting tlie.Pvoman and oppres¬ 
sing every other church, he meddled little in the 
affairs of Germany. But Ferdinand and Maxi¬ 
milian dead, and the offspring of Maximilian 
extinct, the kings of Spain espoused the interest 
of the other branch of their family, entertained 
remote views of ambition in favor of their own 
branch, even on that side, and made all the enter¬ 
prises of Ferdinand of Gratz, both before and after 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


171 

liis elevation to the empire, the common cause of 
the house of Austria. What completed their ruin 
was this; they knew not how to lose, nor when to 
yield : they acknowledged the independency of 
the Dutch commonwealth, and became the allies 
of their ancient subjects at the treaty of Munster; 
but they would not forego their usurped claim 

i* 

on Dortugal, and they persisted to carry 011 
singly the war against France. Thus they were 
reduced to such a lowness of power as can hardly 
be paralleled in any other case; and Philip the 
fourth was obliged at last to conclude a peace, on 
terms repugnant to his inclination, to that of 
his people, to the interest of Spain, and to that 
of all Europe, in the Pyrenean treaty. 

As to France: this era of the entire fall of the 
Spanish power is likewise that from which we 
may reckon that France grew as formidable, as we 
have seen her, to her neighbours, in power and 
pretensions. Henry the fourth meditated great 
designs,and prepared to act a great part in Europe 
in the very beginning of this period, when Ra- 
vaillac stabbed him : his designs died with him, 
and are rather guessed at than known; for surely 
those which his historian Perelixeand the com¬ 
pilers of SLilly’s memorials ascribe to him, of a 
Christian commonwealth divided into fifteen 
states, and of a senate to decide all differences, and 
to maintain this new constitution of Europe, are 
loo chimerical to have been really his; but his 


STUDY OF HISTORY. 


172 

general design of abasing the house of Austria, 
and establishing the superior power in that of 
Bourbon, was taken up about twenty years after 
his death by Richelieu, and was pursued by him 
and by Mazarin with so much ability and success, 
that it was effected entirely by the treaties of 
Westphalia and by the Pyrenean treaty; that is, 
at the end of the second of those periods I have 
presumed to propose to your lordship. 

When the third, in which we now are, will end, 
and what circumstances will mark the end of it, 
I know not; but this I know, that the great events 
and revolutions, which have happened in the 
course ofit, interest us still more nearly than those 
of the two precedent periods. I intended to have 
drawn up an elenchus or summary of the three, 
but I doubted, on further rellection, whether 
my memory would enable me to do it with exact¬ 
ness enough; and I saw that, if I was able to do 
it, the deduction would be immeasurably long: 
something of this kind, however, it may be 
reasonable to attempt, in speaking of the last 
period ; which may hereafter occasion a further 
trouble to your lordship. 

Eat to give you some breathing time, I will 
postpone it at present, and am in the mean while, 

My lord, r 

Yours, etc. 


HISTbltY OF EUROPE. 



LETTER YII. 


A Sketch of the state and history of Europe, from lha 
Pyrenean, treaty in one thousand six hundred and 
fifty-nine to the year one thousand six hundred and 
eighty-eight. 


THE first observation I shall make on this 
third period of modern history is, that as the 
ambition of Charles the fifth, who united the 
whole formidable power of Austria in himself, 
and the restless temper, the cruelty, and bigotry 
of Philip the second, were principally objects of 
the attention and solicitude of the councils of 
Europe, in the first of these periods; and as the 
ambition of Ferdinand the second and the third, 
who aimed at nothing less than extirpating the 
protestant interest, and, under that pretence, sub¬ 
duing the liberties of Germany, were objects of 
the same kind in the second; so an opposition to 
the growing power of France, or to speak more 
properly, to the exorbitant ambition of the house 
of Bourbon, has been the principal affair of 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. . 


1 7 ^ 

Europe during the greatest part of the present 
period. The design of aspiring to universal mo¬ 
narchy, was imputed to Charles the fifth, as soon 
as he began to give proofs of his ambition and 
capacity ; the same design was imputed to Lewis 
the fourteenth, as soon as he began to feel his 
own strength, and the weakness of his neighbours: 
neither of these princes was induced, I believe, 
by the flattery of his courtiers, or the apprehen¬ 
sions of his adversaries, to entertain so chimerical 
a design as this would have been, even in that 
false sense wherein the word universal is so often 
understood ; and I mistake very much if either 
of them was of a character, or in circumstances, 
to undertake it. Both of them had strong desires 
to raise their families higher, and to extend 
their dominions farther; but neither of them had 
that bold and adventurous ambition which makes 
a conqueror and an hero. These apprehensions, 
however, were given wisely, and taken usefully : 
they cannot be given nor taken too soon, when 
such powers as these arise; because when such 
powers as tliese are besieged as it were early, by 
the common policy and watchfulness of their 
neighbours, each of them may in his turn of 
strength sally forth and gain a little ground, but 
none of them will be able to push their conquests 
far, and much less to consummate the entire 
projects of their ambition. Besides, the occasional 
opposition that was given to Charles the fifth by 


mSTOIlY OF EtlROFi:. 175 

our Henry the eighth, according to the different 
moods ofhumour he was in; by the popes, ac¬ 
cording to the several turns of their private 
interest; and by the princes of Germany, accor¬ 
ding to the occasions or pretences that religion 
or civil liberty furnished; he had, from his lirst 
setting out, a rival and an enemy in Francis the 
first, who did not maintain his cause u in forma 
pauperis , 57 if I may use such an expression ; as 
we have seen the house of Austria sue, in our 
days, for dominion, at the gate of every palace 
in Europe. Francis the first was the principal in 
his own quarrels, paid his own armies, fought 
his own battles; and though his valor alone did 
not hinder Charles the fifth from subduing all 
Europe, as Bayle, a better philologer than poli¬ 
tician, somewhere asserts, but a multitude of other 
circumstances easily to be traced in history, yet 
he contributed by his victories, and even by his 
defeats, to waste the strength and check the course 
of that growing power. Lewis the fourteenth had 
no rival of this kind in the house of Austria, nor 
indeed any enemy of this importance to combat, 
till the prince of Orange became king of Great 
Britain; and he had great advantages in many other 
respects, which it is necessary to consider, in 
order 1 o make a true judgment on the affairs of 
Europe from the year one thousand six hundred 
and sixty. 

You will discover the first of these advantages, 


176* HISTORY OP EUROPP. 

and such as were productive of all ihe rest, in 
the conduct of Richelieu and of Mazarin. 
Richelieu formed the great design, and laid the 
foundations; Mazarin pursued the design, and 
raised the superstructure* If I do not deceive 
myself extremely, there are few passages in his¬ 
tory that deserve your lordship’s attention more 
than the conduct that the first and greatest of 
these ministers held, in laying the foundations I 
speak of. You will observe how he helped to 
embroil affairs on every side, and to keep the 
house of Austria at bav as it were: how he entered 
into the quarrels of Italy against Spain, into that 
concerning the Yalteline , and that concerning 
the succession of Mantua; without engaging so 
deep as to divert him from another great object 
of his policy, subduing Rochelle and disarming 
1 lie Huguenots. You will observe how he turned 

c j 

himself, after this was done,, to stop the progress 
of Ferdinand in Germany. Whilst Spain fo¬ 
mented discontents in the court, and disorders in 
ihe kingdom of France by all possible means, even 
by taking engagements with the duke of Rohan, 
and for supporting the protestants, Richelieu abet¬ 
ted the same interest in Germany against Ferdi¬ 
nand, and in the LowCountries against Spain. The 
emperor was become almost the master in Ger¬ 
many. Christian the fourth, king of Denmark, 
had been at tlie bead of a league, wherein the 
United Provinces, Sweden, and Lower Saxony, 


HISTORY OF EtlROTE. 

entered to oppose liis progress : but Christian had 
been defeated by Tilly and Valstein, and obliged 
to conclude a treaty at Lubec, where Ferdinand 
gave him the law. It was then that Gustav us 
Adolphus, with whom Richelieu made an alliance, 
entered into this war, and soon turned the fortune 
of it. The French minister had not yet engaged 
his master openly in the war; but when the 
Dutch grew impatient, and threatened to renew 
their truce with Spain, unless France declared; 
when the king of Sw ^en was killed, and the 
battle of Nordlingen lost; when Saxony had 
turned again to the side of the emperor and 
Brandenburgh and so many others had followed 
this example, that Hesse almost alone persisted 
in the Swedish alliance; then Richelieu engneed 
his master, and profited of every circumstance 
which ihe conjuncture afforded, to engag ehinx 
with advantage. For, first, he had a double ad¬ 
vantage by engaging so late; that of coming fresh 
.into the quarrel against a wearied and almost 
exhausted enemy; and that of yielding to the 
impatience of his friends, who, pressed by their 
necessities and by the want they had of France, 
gave this minister an opportunity of laying those 
claims, and establishing those pretensions, in all 
liis treaties with Holland, Sweden, and the princes 
and states of the empire, on which he had pro¬ 
jected the future aggrandisement of Fiance. The 
manner in which he engaged, and the air that he 


HISTORY OF EFROTF. 


178 

gave to his engagement, were advantages of life 
second sort, advantages of reputation and credit; 
yet were these of no small moment in the course 
of the war, and operated strongly in favor of 
France, as he designed they should, even after his 
death, and at and after the treaties of Westphalia. 
He varnished ambition with the most plausible 
and popular pretences. The elector ol Treves 
had put himself under the protection of France : 
and, if I remember right, he made this step when 
the emperor could not protect him against the 
Swedes, whom he had reason to apprehend. No 
matter, the governor of Luxemburgh was ordered 
to surprise Treves, and to seize the elector. He 
executed his orders with success, and carried this 
prince prisoner into Brabant, Richelieu seized 
the luckv circumstance: he reclaimed the elector : 

V / 

and on the refusal of the cardinal infant, the war 
was declared. France, you see, appeared the com¬ 
mon friend of liberty, the defender of it in the 
Low Countries against the king of Spain, and in 
Germany against the emperor, as well as the pro¬ 
tector of the princes of the empire, many of whose 
states had been illegally invaded, and whose per¬ 
sons were no longer safe from violence even in 
their own palaces. 

All these appearances were kept up in the ne- 
gociations at Munster, where Mazarin reaped what 
Richelieu had sowed. The demands that France 
made for herself were very great: but the conjune- 


HISTORY OT EUROPE 


*79 

tare was favorable, and she improved it to the 
utmost. No figure could be more flattering than 
tier’s, at the head oF these negociations ; nor moie 
mortifying Ilian the emperor’s, through the whole 
course of the treaty. The princes and states of 
the empire had been treated as vassals by the 
emperor; France determined them to treat with 
him on this occasion as sovereigns, and supported 
them in this determination. Whilst Sweden 
seemed concerned for the protestant interest alone, 
and showed no other regard, as she had no other 
alliance, France affected to be impartial alike to 
the protestant and to the papist, and to have no 
interest at heart but the common interest of {he 
Germanic body. Her demands were excessive, 
but they were to be satisfied principally out of 
the emperor’s patrimonial dominions. It had been 
the art of her ministers to establish this general 
maxim on many particular experiences, that the 
grandeur of France was a real, and would be a 
Constant security to the rights and liberties of 
the empire against the emperor; and it is no 
wonder, therefore, this maxim prevailing,—inju¬ 
ries, resentments, and jealousies being fresh on 
one side; and services, obligations, and confidence 
on the other,—that the Germans were not unwil¬ 
ling France should extend her empire on this 
side of the Rhine, whilst Sweden did the same on 
this side of the Baltic. These treaties, and the 
immense credit and influence that France bad 


N 2 




HISTORY OF EUR OFF. 


I So 

acquired by them in the empire, put it out of the 
power of one branch of the house of Austria to 
return the obligations of assistance to the other, 
in the war that continued between France and 
Spain, till the Pyrenean treaty. By this treaty 
the superiority of the house of Bourbon over the 
house of Austria was not only completed and 
confirmed, but the great design of uniting the 
Spanish and the French monarchies under the 
former was laid. 

The third period, therefore, begins by a great 
change of the balance of power in Europe, and by 
the prospect of one much greater and more fatal. 
Before I descend into the particulars I intend to 
mention, of the coui'se of affairs, and of the poli¬ 
tical conduct of the great powers of Europe in 
this third period, give me leave to cast my eyes 
once more back on the second. The reflection 
I am going to make seems to me important, and 
leads to all that is to follow. 

The Dutch made their peace separately at 
Munster with Spain, who acknowledged them 
the sovereignty and independency of their com¬ 
monwealth. The French, who had been, after 
our Elisabeth,their principal support, reproached 
them severely for this breach of faith. They 
excused themselves in the best manner, and by 
the best reasons, they could. All this your lord¬ 
ship will find in the monuments of that time. 

But I think it not improbable that they had a 


HISTORY OF ETJROTE. 


lSl 

motive you will rot find tliere, and which it was 
not proper to give as a reason or excuse to the 
French. Might not the wise men amongst them 
consider, even then, besides the immediate advan¬ 
tages that accrued by this treaty to their com¬ 
monwealth, that the imperial power was fallen; 
that the power of Spain was vastly reduced ; 
that the house of Austria was nothing more 
than the shadow of a great name ; and that 
the house of Bourbon was advancing, by large 
strides, to a degree of power as exorbitant and 
as formidable as that of the other family had 
been in the hands of Charles the fifth, of Philip 
the second, and lately of the two Ferdinands? 
might they not foresee, even then, what happened 
in the course of very few years, when they were 
obliged, for their own security, to assist their old 
enemies the Spaniards against their old friends 
the French?—I think they might. Our Charles 
the first was no great politician, and yet he seemed 
to discern that the balance of power was turn¬ 
ing in favor of France, some years before the 
treaties of Westphalia. He refused to be neuter, 
and threatened to take part with Spain, if the 
French pursued the design of besieging Dunkirk 
and Graveline, according to a concert taken 
between them and the Dutch, and ill pursuance of 
a'treaty for dividing the Spanish Low Countries, 
which Richelieu had negociatcd. Cromwell either 
did not discern this turn of the balance of power, 


I 


382 HISTORY OF EUROrU. 

long afterwards when it was much more visible-$ 
or, discerning it, he was induced by reasons of 
private interest to act against the general interest 
of Europe. Cromwell joined with France against 
Spain; and, though he got Jamaica and Dunkirk, 
he drove the Spaniards into a necessity of making 
a peace with France, that has disturbed the peace 
of the world almost fourscore years, and the con¬ 
sequences of which have well-nigh beggared in 
our times the nation be enslaved in liis. There 
is a tradition, I have heard it from persons who 
lived in those days, and I believe it came from 
Tliurloe, that Cromwell was in treaty with Spain, 
and ready to turn his arms against France when 
he died. If this fact was certain, as little as 
I honor his memory, I should have some regret 
that he died so soon. But whatever his inten¬ 
tions were, we must charge the Pyrenean treaty, 
and the fatal consequences of it, in a great measure 
to his account. The Spaniards abhorred the 
thought of marrying their Infanta to Lewis the 
fourteenth. It was on this point that they broke the 
negociation Lionne had begun: and your lordship 
will perceive, that if they resumed it afterwards, 
and offered the marriage they had before rejected, 
Cromwell’s league with France was a principal 
inducement to this alteration of their resolutions. 

The precise point at which the scales of power 
turn like that of the solstice in either tropic, is 
imperceptible to common observation; and, in 


\ 


HISTORY OF iuROTE. l 85 

one case as in 11 e other, some progress must 
be made in the new direction, before the change 
is perceived: they who are in the sinking scale, 
—for, in the political balance of power, unlike 
to all others, the scale that is empty sinks, and 
that which is full rises,—thev, who are in the 
sinking scale, do not easily come off from the 
habitual prejudices of superior wealth, or power, 
or skill, or courage, nor from the confidence that 
these prejudices inspire : they, who are in the 
rising scale, do not immediately feel their strength, 
nor assume that confidence in it which successful 
experience gives them afterwards: they who are 
the most concerned to watch the variations of 
this balance, misjudge often in the same manner, 
and from the same prejudices: they continue to 
dread a power no longer able to hurt them, or 
they continue to have no apprehensions of a 
power that grows daily more formidable. Spain 
verified the first observation at the end of the 
second period, when, proud and poor, and enter- 
prizing and feeble, she still thought herself a 
match for France; France verified the second 
observation at the beginning of the third period, 
when the triple alliance stopped the progress of 
her arms, which alliances much more consi¬ 
derable were not able to effect afterwards : the 
other principal powers of Europe, in their turns, 
have verified the third observation in both its 
parts, through the whole course of this period. 


HISTORY OR EUROPE. 


l 8 k 

When Lewis the fourteenth took the adminis¬ 
tration of affairs into his own hands, about the 
year one thousand six hundred and sixty, ho 
was in the prime of his age, and had, what 
princes seldom have, the advantages of youth 
and those of experience together: their education 
is generally bad; for which reason royal birth, 
that gives a right to the throne among other 
people, gave an absolute exclusion from it among 
the Marmalukes: his was, in all respects, except 
one, as bad as that of other princes ; he jested 
sometimes on his own ignorance ; and there were 
other defects in his character, owing to his edu¬ 
cation, which he did not see; but Mazarin had 
initiated him betimes into the mysteries of his 
policy; he had seen a great part of those founda¬ 
tions laid, on which he was to raise the fabric 
of his future grandeur; and as Mazarin finished 
the work that Richelieu began, he had the lessons 
of one, and the examples of both, to instruct him : 
he had acquired habits of secresy and method in 
business; of reserve, discretion, decency, and 
dignity, in behaviour. If he was not the greatest 
king, he was the best actor of majesty at least, 
that ever filled a throne : he by no means wanted 
that courage which is commonly called bravery ; 
though the want of it was imputed to him in 
the midst of his greatest triumphs; nor that other 
courage, less ostentatious and more rarely found, 
calm, steady, persevering resolution, which seems, 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


i85 


to arise less from the temper of the body, and 
is therefore called courage of the mind ; he had 
them both most certainly, and I could produce 
unquestionable anecdotes in proof: he was, in 
one word, much superior to any prince with 
whom he had to do, when he began to govern; 
he was surrounded with great captains bred in 
former wars, and with great ministers bred in 
the same school as himself; they who had worked 
under Mazarin, worked on the same plan under 
him; and as they had the advantage of genius 
ancl experience over most of the ministers of 
other countries, so they had another advantage 
over those who were equal or superior to them; 
the advantage of serving a master whose absolute 
power was established; and the advantage of a 
situation wherein they might exert their whole 
capacity without contradiction ; over that, for 
instance, wherein your lordship’s great grand¬ 
father was placed, at the same time, in England, 
and John de Wit in Holland. Among these 
ministers, Colbert must be mentioned, particu¬ 
larly upon this occasion; because it was he who 
improved the wealth and consequeuily the power 
of France extremely, by the order he put into 
the finances, and by the encouragement he gave 
to trade and manufactures. The soil, the climate, 
the situation of France, the ingenuity, the in¬ 
dustry, the vivacity of her inhabitants, are such; 
she has so little want of the product of other 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


1 06 . 

countries, and other countries have so many 
real or imaginary wants to be supplied by her; 
that when she is not at war with all her neigh¬ 
bours, when her domestic quiet is preserved, 
and any tolerable administration of government 
prevails, she must grow rich at the expense 
of those who trade, and even of those who do 
not open a trade, with her. Her hawbles, her 
modes, the follies and extravagancies of her 
luxury, cost England, about the time we are 
speaking of, little less than eight hundred thou¬ 
sand pounds sterling a year, and other nations 
in their proportions. Colbert made the most 
of all these advantageous circumstances, and 
whilst he filled the national spunge, he taught 
his successors how to squeeze it; a secret that 
he repented having discovered, they say, when 
lie saw the immense sums that were necessary 
to supply the growing magnificence of his master. 

This was the character of Lewis the fourteenth, 
and this was the state of his kingdom at the 
beginning of the present period. If his power 
was great, his pretensions were still greater: lie 
had renounced, and the Infanta with his consent 
had renounced, all right to the succession of 
Spain, in the strongest terms that the precaution 
of the councils of Madrid could contrive: no 
matter, he consented to these renunciations; but 
your lordship will find by the letters of Mazarin, 
and by other memorials, that he acted on the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


187 

contrary principle from the first, which he 
avowed soon afterwards. Such a power, and 
such pretensions should have given, one would 
think, an immediate alarm to the rest of Europe. 
Philip the fourth was broken and decayed, like 
the monarchy he governed: one of his sons died, 
as I remember, during the negotiations that pre¬ 
ceded the year one thousand six hundred and 
sixty: and the survivor, who was Charles the 
second, rather languished than lived from the 
cradle to the grave. So dangerous a contingency, 
therefore, as the union of the two monarchies of 
France and Spain, being in view forty years 
together, one would imagine that the principal 
powers of Europe had the means of preventing 
it constantly in view during the same time; but 
it was otherwise: France acted very systema¬ 
tically, from the year one thousand six hundred 
and sixty to the death of king Charles the second 
of Spain; she never lost sight of her great object, 
the succession to the whole Spanish monarchy, 
and she accepted the will, of the king of Spain in 
favor of the duke of Anjou: as she never lost 
sight-of her great object during this time, so she 
lost no opportunity of increasing her power, 
while she waited for that of succeeding in her 
pretensions. The two branches of Austria were 
in no condition of making a considerable opposi¬ 
tion to. her designs and attempts : Holland, who 
of all other powers was the most concerned to 




1 88 HISTORY OF EUROPE, 

oppose them, was at that time under two in¬ 
fluences that hindered her from pursuing her true 
interest; her true interest^ was to have used her 
utmost endeavours to unite closely and inti¬ 
mately with England on the restoration of king 
Chari es: she did the very contrary; John de TVit, 
at the head of the Louvestein faction, governed: 
the interest of his party was to keep the house 
of Orange down; he courted, therefore, the 
friendship of France, and neglected that of 
England. The alliance between our nation and 
the Dutch was renewed, I think, in one thousand 
six hundred and sixty-two; but the latter had 
made a defensive league with France a little 
before, on the supposition principally of a war 
with England. The war became inevitable very 
soon. Cromwell had chastised them for their 
usurpations in trade, and the outrages and 
cruelties they had committed; but he had not 
cured them. The same spirit continued in the 
Dutch, the same resentments in the English; and 
the pique of merchants became the pique of 
nations. France entered into the war on the side 
of Holland; but the little assistance she gave the 
Dutch showed plainly enough that her intention 
was to make these two powers waste their 
strength against one another, whilst she extended 
her conquests in the Spanish Low Countries* 
Her invasion of these provinces obliged De Wit 
to change his conduct. Hitherto he had been 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 189 

attached to France in the closest manner, had led 
his republic to serve all the purposes of France, 
and had renewed with the marshal D’Estrades a 
project of dividing the Spanish Netherlands 
between France and Holland, that had been 
taken up formerly, when Richelieu made use of 
it to flatter their ambition and to engage them to 
prolong the war against Spain ;—a project not 
unlike to that which was held out to them by the 
famous preliminaries, and the extravagant bar¬ 
rier-treaty, in one thousand seven hundred and 
nine; and which engaged them to continue a war 
on the principle of ambition, into which they had 
entered with more reasonable and more moderate 
views. 

As the private interest of the two De Wits 
hindered that commonwealth from being on her 
guard, as early as she ought to have been, against 
France; so the mistaken policy of the court of 
England and the short views and the profuse 
temper of the prince who governed, gave great 
advantages to Lewis the fourteenth in the pursuit 
of his designs: he bought Dunkirk; and your 
lordship knows how great a clamor was raised on 
that occasion against your noble ancestor, as if he 
alone had been answerable for the measure, and 
his interest had been concerned in it. I have 
heard our late friend, Mr. George Clark, quote 
a witness, who was quite unexceptionable, but 
I cannot recal his name at present ; who, many 


jgo 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


years after all these transactions and the death of 

«/ 

my lord Clarendon, affirmed that the carl of 
Sandwich had owned to him, that he himself 
gave his opinion, among many others, officers 
and ministers, for selling Dunkirk: their reasons 
could not be good, I presume to say; but several, 
that might be plausible at that time, are easily 
guessed. A prince like king Charles, who would 
have made as many bad bargains as any young 
spendthrift, for money, finding himself thus 
backed, we may assure ourselves, was peremp¬ 
torily determined to sell; and whatever your 
great grandfather’s opinion was, this I am able to 
pronounce upon my own experience, that his 
treaty for the sale is no proof he was of opinion 
to sell. When the resolution of selling was once 
taken, to whom could the sale be made?—To the 
Dutch?—No: this measure would have been at 
least as impolitic, and, in that moment, perhaps 
more odious than the other. To the Spaniards? 
—They were unable to buy; and, as low as their 
power was sunk, the principle of opposing it still 
prevailed. I have sometimes thought that the 
Spaniards, who were forced to make peace with 
Portugal, and to renounce all claim to that crown 
four or five years afterwards, might have been 
induced to take this resolution then, if the 
regaining Dunkirk without any expense had 
been a condition proposed to them; and that the 
Portuguese, who, notwithstanding their alliance 


History of Europe. 


391 

with England and the indirect succours that 
France afforded them, were little able, after the 
treat} r especially, to support a war against Spain, 
might have been induced to pay the price of 
Dunkirk, for so great an advantage as immediate 
peace^ with Spain, and the extinction of all foreign 
pretences on their crown. But this speculation 
concerning events so long ago passed is not much 
to the purpose here: I proceed, therefore, to 
observe, that notwithstanding the sale of Dun¬ 
kirk, and the secret leanings of our court to that 
of France, yet England was first to take the alarm, 
when Lewis the fourteenth invaded the Spanish 
Netherlands in one thousand six hundred and 
sixty-seven, and the triple alliance was the work 
of an English minister. It was time to take this 
alarm; for, from the moment that the king of 
France claimed a right to the county of Bur¬ 
gundy, the duchy of Brabant, and other portions 
of the Low Countries, as devolved on his queen 
by the death of her father Philip the fourth, he 
pulled off the mask entirely. Volumes were 
written to establish, and to refute the supposed 
right. Your lordship, no doubt, will look into 
a controversy that has employed so many pens 
and so many swords; and I believe you will 
think it was sufficiently bold in the French to 
argue from customs, that regulated the course of 
private successions in certain provinces to a right 
of succeeding to the sovereignty of those pro- 


1C)2 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

vinces; and to assert the divisibility of the 
Spanish monarchy, with the same breath with 
which they asserted .the indivisibility of their 
own; although the proofs in one case were just as 
good as the proofs in the other, and the funda¬ 
mental law of indivisibility was at least as good 
a law in Spain, as either this or the Salique law 
was in France. But however proper it might be 
for the French and Austrian pens to enter into 
long discussions, and to appeal, on this great 
occasion, to the rest of Europe, the rest of 
Europe had a short objection to make to the plea 
of France, which no sophisms, no quirks of law, 
could evade. Spain accepted the renunciations 
as a real security; France gave them as such to 
Spain, and in effect to the rest of Europe. If they 
had not been thus given, and thus taken, the 
Spaniards would not have married their Infanta 
to the king of France, whatever distress they 
might have endured by the prolongation of the 
war. These renunciations were renunciations 
of all rights whatsoever to the whole Spanish 
monarchy, and to every part of it. The pro¬ 
vinces claimed by France, at this time, were parts 
of it: to claim them, was therefore to claim the 
whole; for if the renunciations were no bar to 
the rights accruing to Mary Theresa on the death 
of her lather Philip the fourth, neither could 
they be any to the rights that would accrue to 
her, and her children, on the death of her 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 1 g5 

brother Charles the second; an unhealthful 
youth, and who at this instant was in immediate 
danger of dying; for to all the complicated dis¬ 
tempers he brought into the world with him, the 
small-pox was added. Your lordship sees how 
the fatal contingency of uniting the two monar¬ 
chies of France and Spain stared mankind in the 
face; and yet nothing, that I can remember, was 
done to prevent it; not so much as a guarantee 
given, or a declaration made to assert the vali¬ 
dity of these renunciations, and for securing the 
effect of them. The triple alliance, indeed, 
stopped the progress of the French arms, and 
produced the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; but 
England, Sweden, and Holland, the contracting 
powers in this alliance, seemed to look, and pro¬ 
bably did look no farther. France kept a great 
and important part of what she had surprised, or 
ravished, or purchased; for we cannot say with 
any propriety that she conquered; and the 
Spaniards were obliged to set all they saved to 
the account of gain. The German branch of 
Austria had been reduced very low in power and 
in credit under Ferdinand the third, by the trea¬ 
ties of Westphalia, as I have said already: Lewis 
the fourteenth maintained, during many years, 
the influence these treaties had given him among 
the princes and states of the empire. The 
famous capitulation made at Franckfort on the 
election of Leopold, who succeeded Ferdinand 

o 


1 g4 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

about the year one thousand six hundred and 
fifty-seven, was encouraged by the intrigues of 
France; and the power of France was looked 
upon as the sole power that could ratify and 
secure effectually the observation of the condi¬ 
tions then made. The league of the Rhine was 
not renewed, I believe, after the year one thou¬ 
sand six hundred and sixty-six; but though this 
league was not renewed, yet some of these 
princes and states continued in their old engage¬ 
ment with France, whilst others took new 
engagements on particular occasions, according 
as private and sometimes very paltry interests, 
and the emissaries of France in all their little 
courts, disposed them: in short, the princes of 
Germany showed no alarm at the growing ambi¬ 
tion and power of Lewis the fourteenth, but 
contributed to encourage one and to confirm the 
other. In such a state of things, the German 
branch was little able to assist the Spanish branch 
against France, either in the war that ended by 
the Pyrenean treaty, or in that we are speaking 
of here, the short war that began in one thou¬ 
sand six hundred and sixty-seven, and was 
ended by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in one 
thousand six hundred and sixty-eight: but it 
was not this alone that disabled the emperor 
from acting with vigor in the cause of his family 
then, nor that has rendered the house of Austria 
a dead weight upon all her allies ever since. 





HISTORY OF EUROPE. 196 

Bigotry, and its inseparable companion, cruelty, 
Rs well as the tyranny and avarice of the court 
of Yienna, created in those days, and has main¬ 
tained in our’s, almost a perpetual diversion of 
the imperial arms from all effectual opposition 
to France: I mean to speak of the troubles in 
Hu ngary; whatever they became in their pro¬ 
gress, they were caused originally by the usurpa¬ 
tions and persecutions of the emperor; and when 
ihe Hungarians were called rebels first, they were 
called so for no other reason than this, that they 
would not be slaves. The dominion of the 
emperor being less supportable- than that of the 
Turks-, this unhappy people opened a door to the 
latter to infest the empire, instead of making 
their country what it had been before, a barrier 
against the Ottoman power: Fiance became 
a sure though secret ally of the Turks, as well 
as the Hungarians, and has found her account in 
it, by keeping the emperor in perpetual alarms 
on that side, while she has ravaged the empire 
and the Low Countries on the other. Thus we 
saw, thirty-two years ago, the arms of France 
and Bavaria in possession of Passau, and the mal¬ 
contents of Hungary in the suburbs of Vienna. 
In a word, when Lewis the fourteenth made the 
first essay of his power, by the war of one thou¬ 
sand six hundred and sixty-seven, and sounded, 
as it were, the councils of Europe concerning 
his pretensions on the Spanish succession, lie 



I 96 HISTORY OP EUROPE. 

found his power to be great beyond what his 
neighbours or even he perhaps thought it; great 
by the wealth, and greater by ihe united spirit of 
his people 5 greater still by the ill policy and 
divided interests that governed those who had 
a superior common interest to oppose him : he 
found that the members of the triple alliance 
did not see, or, seeing, did not think proper 
to own that they saw, the injustice and the 
consequence of his pretensions: they contented 
themselves to give to Spain an act of guaranty 
for securing the execution of the treaty of 
Aix-la-Cliapelle: he knew, even then, how ill 
the guarantee would be observed by two of 
them at least, by England and by Sweden : the 
treaty itself was nothing more than a com¬ 
position between the bully and the bullied; 
Tournay, and Lisle, and Douay, and other 
places that I have forgot, were yielded to him; 
and he restored the county of Burgundy, ac¬ 
cording to the option that Spain made, against 
the interest and expectation too of the Dutch, 
when an option was forced upon her. The 
king of Spain compounded for his possession; 
but the emperor compounded at the same time 
for his succession, by a private eventual treaty 
of partition, which the commander of Gremon- 
ville and the count of Aversberg signed at 
Vienna. The same Leopold, who exclaimed so 
loudly in one thousand six hundred and ninety- 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


197 


eight, against any partition of the Spanish mo¬ 
narchy, and refused to submit to that which 
England and Holland had then made, made 
one himself in one thousand six hundred and 
sixty-eight, with so little regard to these two 
powers, that the whole ten provinces were 
thrown into the lot of France. 

There is no room to wonder, if such expe¬ 
rience as Lewis the fourteenth had upon this 
occasion, and such a face of affairs in Europe, 
raising his hopes, raised his ambition; and if, 
in making peace at Aix-la-Chapelle, he medi¬ 
tated a new war, the war of one thousand six 
hundred and seventy-two; the preparations he 
made for it, by negociations in all parts, by 
alliances wherever he found ingression, and by 
the increase of his forces, were equally proofs 
of ability, industry, and power. I shall not 
descend into these particulars; your lordship 
will find them pretty well detailed in the me¬ 
morials of that time. But one of the alliances 
he made I must mention, though I mention it 
with the utmost regret and indignation: England 
was fatally engaged to act a part in this conspi¬ 
racy against the peace and the liberty of Europe, 
nay, against her own peace and her own liberty; 
for a bubble’s part it was, equally wicked and 
impolitic. Forgive the terms I use, my lord; 
none can be too strong. The principles of the 
triple alliance, just and wise, and worthy of a 


I98 HISTORY OP EUROPE, 

king of England, were laid aside : then, the 
progress of the French arms was to be checked, 
the ten provinces were to be saved, and by 
saving them, the barrier of Holland was to be 
preserved; now, we joined our councils and 
our arms to those of France, in a project that 
could not be carried on at all, as it was easy 
to foresee, and as the event showed, unless it 
was carried on against Spain, the emperor, and 
most of the princes of Germany, as well as the 
Dutch; and which could not be carried on 
successfully, without leaving the ten provinces 
entirely at the mercy of France, and giving 
her pretence and opportunity of ravaging the 
empire, and extending her conquests on the 
Rhine. The medal of Van Beuninghen, and other 
pretences that France took for attacking the 
states of the Low Countries, were ridiculous; 
they imposed on no one; and the true object of 
Lewis the fourteenth was manifest to all. But. 
what could a king of England mean? Charles 
the second had reasons of resentment against 
the Dutch; and just ones too, no doubt: among 
the rest, it was not easy for him to forget the 
affront he had suffered, and the loss he had 
sustained, when, depending on the peace that 
was ready to be signed, and that was signed at 
Breda in July, he neglected to fit out his fleet; 
and when that of Holland, commanded by 
Iluyter, with Cornelius De Wit on board as 



HTSTORY OF EUROPE. 199 

deputy or commissioner of the states, burned 
his ships at Chatham in June. The famous 
perpetual edict, as it was called, but did not 
prove in the event, against the election of a state- 
holder, which John de Wit promoted, carried, 
and obliged the prince of Orange to swear to 
maintain a very few days after the conclusion of 
the peace at Breda, might be another motive in 
the breast of king Charles the second; as it was 
certainly a pretence of revenge on the Dutch, or 
at least on the De Wits and the Louvestein fac¬ 
tion, that ruled almost despotically in that com¬ 
monwealth : but it is plain that neither these 
reasons, nor others of a more ancient date, 
determined him to this alliance with France; 
since he contracted the triple alliance within 
four or five months after the two events, I have 
mentioned, happened. What, then, did he mean? 
Did he mean to acquire one of the seven pro¬ 
vinces, and divide them, as the Dutch had twice 
treated for the division of the ten, with France? 
I believe not; but this I believe, that his incli¬ 
nations were favorable to the popish interest in 
general, and that he meant to make himself more 
absolute at home; that he thought it necessary 
to this end to humble the Dutch, to reduce their 
power, and perhaps to change the form of their 
government; to deprive his subjects of the coi- 
respondence with a neighbouring protestant and 
free state, and of all hope of succour and sup- 


200 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

port from thence in their opposition to him; m 
a word, to abet the designs of France on the 
continent, that France might abet his designs on 
his own kingdom. This, I say, I believe; and 
this I should venture to affirm, if I had in my 
hands to produce, and was at liberty to quote, 
the private relations I have read formerly, drawn 
up by those who were no enemies to such 
designs, and on the authority of those who were 
parties to them: but whatever king Charles the 
second meant, certain it is that his conduct 
established the superiority of France in Europe. 

But this charge, however, must not be con¬ 
fined to him alone; those who were nearer the 
danger, those who were exposed to the imme¬ 
diate attacks of France, and even those who were 
her rivals for the same succession, have either 
assisted her, or engaged to remain neuters; a 
strange fatality prevailed, and produced such 
a conjuncture as can hardly be paralleled in 
history. 'Your lordship will observe with asto¬ 
nishment, even in the beginning of the year one 
thousand six hundred and seventy-two, all the 
neighbours of France acting as if they had 
nothing to fear from her, and some as if they 
had much to hope, by helping her to oppress 
the Dutch and sharing with her the spoils of that 
commonwealth. “ Delenda est Carthago, JJ was 
the cry in England, and seemed, too, a maxim 
on the continent. 








HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


201 


In the course of the same year, you will 
observe that all these powers took the alarm, 
and began to unite in opposition to France. Even 
England thought it time to interpose in favor 
of the Dutch. The consequences of this alarm, 
of this sudden turn in the policy of Europe, and 
of that which happened by the massacre of the 
De Wits, and the elevation^ of the prince of 
Orange, in the government of the seven pro¬ 
vinces, saved these provinces, and slopped the 
rapid progress of the arms of France. Lewis the 
fourteenth, indeed, surprised the seven provinces 
in this war, as he had surprised the ten in that 
of one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven, 
and ravaged defenceless countries with armies 
sufficient to conquer them, if they had been 
prepared to resist. In the war of one thousand 
six hundred and seventy-two, he had little less 
than one hundred and fifty thousand men on 
foot, besides the bodies of English, Swiss, Ita¬ 
lians, and Swedes, that amounted to thirty or 
forty thousand more. With this mighty force, 
he took forty places in forty days, imposed 
extravagant conditions of peace, played the mo¬ 
narch a little while at Utrecht; and as soon as the 
Dutch recovered from their consternation, and, 
animated by the example of the prince of Orange 
and the hopes of succour, refused these condi¬ 
tions, he went back to Versailles, and left his 
generals to carry on his enterprise: which they 


1202 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

did with so little success, that Grave and Maes- 
tricht alone remained to him of all the boasted 
conquests he had made; and even these he of¬ 
fered two years afterwards to restore, if by that 
concession he could have prevailed on the Dutch 
at that time to make peace with him. But they 
were not yet disposed to abandon their allies; 
for allies now they had. The emperor and the 
king of Spain had engaged in the quarrel against 
France, and many of the princes of the empire 
had done the same : not all. The Bavarian 
continued obstinate in his neutrality, and to 
mention no more, the Swedes made a great 
diversion in favor of France in the empire; 
where the duke of Hanover abetted their designs 
as much as he could, for he was a zealous 
partisan of France, though the other princes of 
his house acted for the common cause. I descend 
into no more particulars. The war that Lewis 
the fourteenth kindled, by attacking in so violen t 
a manner the Dutch commonwealth, and by 
making so arbitrary an use of his first success, 
became general, in the Low Countries, in Spain, 
in Sicily, on the upper and lower Rhine, in 
Denmark, in Sweden, and in the provinces of 
Germany belonging to these two crowns; on the 
Mediterranean, the Ocean, and the Baltic. France 
supported this war with advantage on every 
side : and when your lordship considers in what 
manner it was carried on against her, you will 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 


205 


not be surprised that she did so. Spain had 
spirit, but too little strength to maintain her 
power in Sicily, where Messina had revolted; 
to defend her frontier on that side of the Pyre¬ 
nees, and to resist the great efforts of the French 
in the Low Countries. The empire was divided; 
and, even among the princes who acted against 
France, there was neither union in their councils, 
nor concert in their projects, nor order in pre¬ 
parations, nor vigour in executions: and, to say 
the truth, there was not, in the whole confe¬ 
deracy, a man whose abilities could make him 
a match for the prince of Conde or the marshal 
of Turenne, nor many who were in any degree 
equal to Luxemburg, Crequi, Schoinberg, and 
other generals of inferior note, who commanded 
the armies of France. The emperor took this 
verv time to make new invasions on the liberties 
of Hungary, and to oppress his protestant sub¬ 
jects. The prince of Orange alone acted with 
invincible firmness, like a patriot and a hero. 
Neither the seductions of France nor those of 
England, neither the temptations of ambition nor 
those of private interest, could make him swerve 
from the true interest of his country, nor from 

V ' 

the common interest of Europe. He had raised 
more sieges, and lost more battles, it was said, 
than any general of his age had done. Be it so: 
but his defeats were manifestly due in a great 
measure to circumstances independent on him: 


204 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


and that spirit, which even these defeats could 
not depress, was all his own. He had difficulties 
in his own commonwealth; the governors of 
the Spanish Low Countries crossed his measures 
sometimes; the German allies disappointed and 
broke them often; and it is not improbable that 
he was frequently betrayed. He was so perhaps 
even by Souches, the imperial general: a French¬ 
man according to Bayle, and a pensioner of 
Louvois according to common report and very 
strong appearances. He had not yet credit and 
authority sufficient to make him a centre of 
union to a whole confederacy, the soul that 
animated and directed so great a body. He came 
to be such afterwards; but at the time spoken 
of, he could not take so great a part upon him. 
No other prince or general was equal to it; and 
the consequences of this defect appeared almost 
in every operation. France was surrounded by 
a multitude of enemies, all intent to demolish 
her power. But, like the builders of Babel, 
they spoke different languages; and as those 
could not build, these could not demolish, for 
want of understanding one another. France 
improved this advantage by her arms, and more 
by her negociations. Nimeghen was, after Cologn, 
the scene of these. England was the mediating 
power, and I know not whether our Charles the 
second did not serve her purposes more usefully 
in the latter, and under the character of media- 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 200 

tor, than he did or could have done by joining 
his arms to her’s, and acting as her ally. The 
Dutch were induced to sign a treaty with him, 
that broke the confederacy, and gave great advan¬ 
tage to France : for the purport of it was to 
oblige France and Spain to make peace on a plan 
to be proposed to them, and no mention was 
made in it of the other allies that I remember. 
The Dutch were glad to get out of an expensive 
war. France promised to restore Maastricht to 
them, and Maestricht was the only place that 
remained unrecovered of all they had lost. They 
dropped Spain at Niineghen, as they had dropped 
France at Munster, but many circumstances 
concurred to give a much worse grace to their 
abandoning of Spain, than to their abandoning 
of France. I need not specify them. This only 
I would observe: when they made a separate 
peace at Munster, they left an ally who was in 
condition to carry On the war alone with advan¬ 
tage, and they presumed to impose no terms 
upon him : when they made a separate peace 
at Nirneghen, they abandoned an ally who was 
in no condition to carry on the war alone, and 
who was reduced to accept whatever terms the 
common enemy prescribed. In their great dis¬ 
tress in one thousand six hundred and seventy- 
three, they engiged to restore Maestricht to the 
Spaniards as soon as it should be retaken : it 
was not retaken, and they accepted it for them- 


c 2o6 


HISTORY Or EUROPE. 


selves as the price of the separate peace they 
made with France. The Dutch had engaged 
farther, to make neither peace nor truce with 
the king of France, till that prince consented to 
restore to Spain all he had conquered since the 
Pyrenean treaty. But, far from keeping this 
promise in any tolerable degree, Lewis the four¬ 
teenth acquired, by the plan imposed on Spain 
at Nimeghen, besides the county of Burgundy, 
so many other countries and towns on the side 
of the ten Spanish provinces, that these, added 
to the places he kept of those which had been 
yielded to him by the treaty of Aix-la-Cliapelle, 
(for some of little consequence he restored) put 
into his hands the principal strength of that 
barrier, against which we goaded ourselves 
almost to death in the last great war; and made 
good the saying of the marshal of Schomberg, 
that to attack this barrier was to take the beast 
by his horns. I know very well what may be 
said to excuse the Dutch. The emperor was more 
intent to tyrannize his subjects on one side, than 
to defend them on the other : he attempted 
little against France, and the little he did attempt 
was ill ordered and worse executed. The assist¬ 
ance of the princes of Germany was often uncer- 
. tain, and always expensive. Spain was already 
indebted to Holland for great slms; greater still 
must be advanced to her if the war continued: 
and experience showed that France was able, and 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 207 

Would continue, to prevail against her present 
enemies. The triple league had stopped her 
progress, and obliged her to abandon the county 
of Burgundy; but Sweden was now engaged in 
the war on the side of France, as England had 
been in the beginning of it: and England was 
now privately favorable to her interests, as 
Sweden had been in the beginning of it. The 
whole ten provinces would have been subdued 
in the course of a few campaigns more : and it 
was better for Spain and the Dutch too, that 
part should be saved by accepting a sort of 
composition, than the whole be risked by 
refusing it. This might be alledged to excuse 
the conduct of the States General, in imposing 
hard terms on Spain; in making none for their 
other allies, and in signing alone : by which 
steps they gave France an opportunity that 
she improved with great dexterity of manage¬ 
ment, the opportunity of treating with the 
confederates one by one, and of beating them 
by detail in the cabinet, if I may so say, as 
she had often done in the field. I shall not 
compare these reasons, which were but too 
well founded in fact, and must appear plau¬ 
sible at least, with other considerations that 
might be, and were at the time, insisted upon. 
I confine myself to a few observations, which 
every knowing and impartial man must admit. 
Your lordship will observe, first, that the fatal 


so8 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


principle of compounding with Lewis the four¬ 
teenth, from the time that his pretensions, his 
power, and the use he made of it, began to 
threaten Europe, prevailed still more at Ni- 
meghen than it had prevailed at Aix: so that 
although he did not obtain to the full all he 
attempted, yet the dominions of France were by 
common consent, on every treaty, more and 
more extended; her barriers on all sides were 
more and more strengthened; those of her 
neighbours were more and more weakened; and 
that power, which was to assert one day, against 
the rest of Europe, the pretended rights of the 
house of Bourbon to the Spanish monarchy, was 
more and more established, and rendered truly 
formidable in such hands at least, during the 
course of the first eighteen years of the period. 
Your lordship will please to observe in the se¬ 
cond place, that the extreme weakness of one 
branch of Austria, and the miserable conduct 
of both; the poverty of some of the princes of 
the empire, and the disunion, and, to speak 
plainly, the mercenary policy of all of them; 
in short, the confined views, the false notions, 
and, to speak as plainly of my own as of other 
nations, the iniquity of the councils of England, 
not only hindered the growth of this power 
from being stopped in time, but nursed it up 
into strength almost insuperable by any future 
confederacy. A third observation is this: if the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE, 


209 

excuses made for the conduct of the Dutch at 
Nimeghen are not sufficient, they too must 
come in for their share in this condemnation, 
even after the death of the De Wits; as they 
were to be condemned most justly, during 
that administration, for abetting and favoring 
France. If these excuses, grounded on their 
inability to pursue any longer a war, the prin¬ 
cipal profit of which was to accrue to their 
confederates, for that was the case after the year 
one thousand six hundred and seventy-three, or 
one thousand six hundred and seventy-four 
and llie principal burden of which was thrown 
on them by their confederates; if these are suf¬ 
ficient, they should not have acted for de¬ 
cency’s sake, as well as out of good policy, the 
part they did act in one thousand seven hun¬ 
dred and eleven, and one thousand seven hun¬ 
dred and twelve, towards the late queen, who 
had complaints of the same kind, in a much 
higher degree, and with circumstances much 
more aggravating, to make of them, of the em¬ 
peror, and of all the princes of Germany; and 
who was far from treating them and their other 
allies, at that time, as they treated Spain and 
their other allies in one thousand six hundred 
and seventy-eight. Immediately after the Dutch 
had made their peace, that of Spain was signed 
with France. The emperor’s treaty with this 
crown and that of Sweden was concluded in 

M -4 /I I 

. p 


210 


HISTORY OF EUROFH. 


the following year: and Lewis the fourteenth 
being now at liberty to assist bis ally, whilst 
he had tied up the powers with whom he had 
treated from assisting their’s, he soon forced the 
Ling of Denmark and the elector of Branden¬ 
burg to restore all they had taken from the 
Swedes, and to conclude the peace of the north. 
In all these treaties he gave the law, and he 
was now at the highest point of his grandeur. 
He continued at this point for several years^ 
and in this heighth of his power he prepared 
those alliances against it, under the weight of 
which he was at last well-nigh oppressed; and 
might have been reduced as low as the general 
interest of Europe required, if some of the 
causes, which worked now, had not continued 
to work in his favor, and if his enemies had 
not proved, in their turn of fortune, as insa¬ 
tiable as prosperity had rendered him. 

After he had made peace with all the powers 
with whom he had been in war, he continue^ 
to vex both Spain and the empire, and to ex¬ 
tend his conquests in the Low Countries, and 
on the Rhine, both by the pen and the sword. 
He erected the chambers of Metz and of Brisaeh, 
where his own subjects were prosecutors, 
witnesses, and judges all at once. Upon the 
decisions of these tribunals, lie seized into his 
own hands, under the notion of dependencies 
and the pretence of reunions, whatever towns 


HISTOllY OF EUROPE, 


211 


©r districts of country tempted liis ambition or 
suited his conveniency ; and added, by these 
and by other means, in the midst of peace, 
more territories to those the late treaties had 
yielded to him, than he could have got by 
continuing the war. He acted afterwards, in 
the support of all this, without any bounds or 
limits. His glory was a reason for attacking 
Holland in one thousand six hundred and se¬ 
venty-two, and his conveniency a reason for 
many of the attacks lie made on others after¬ 
wards. He took Luxemburg by force; he stole 
Strasburgh; he bought Cassel; and, whilst he 
waited the opportunity of acquiring to his 
family the crown of Spain, he was not without 
thoughts, nor hopes perhaps, of bringing into it 
the imperial crown likewise. Some of the cruel¬ 
ties he exercised in the empire may be ascribed 
to his disappointment in this view: I say some 
of them, because in the war ended by the treaty 
of Nimeghen. lie had already exercised many. 
Though the French writers endeavour to slide 
over them, to palliate them, and to impute them 
particularly to the English that were in their 
service, for even this one of their writers has 
the front to advance, yet these cruelties, un¬ 
heard of among civilised nations, must be granted 
to have been ordered by the councils and 
executed by the arms of France, in the Pa¬ 
latinate and in other parts. 


p 2 


212 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

If Lewis the fourteenth could have contented 
himself with the acquisitions that were con¬ 
firmed to him by the treaties of one thousand 
six hundred and seventy-eight and one thou¬ 
sand six hundred and seventy-nine, and with 
the authority and reputation which lie then 
gained; it is plain that he would have pre¬ 
vented the alliances that were afterwards formed 
against him; and that lie might have regained 
his credit amongst the princes of the empire, 
where he had one family-alliance by the mar¬ 
riage of his brother to the daughter of the 
elector Palatine, and another by that of his son 
to the sister of the elector of Bavaria; where 
Sweden was closely attached to him ; and where 
the same principles of private interest would 
have soon attached others as closely. He might 
have remained not only the principal, but the 
directing power of Europe, and have held this 
rank with all the glory imaginable, till the death 
of tlie king of Spain, or some other object of 
great ambition, had determined him to act ano¬ 
ther part. But, instead of this, he continued 
to vex and provoke all those who were, un¬ 
happily for them, his neighbours; and that, in 
many instances, for trifles. An example of this 
kind occurs to me:—on the death of the duke 
of Deux Fonts, he seized that little incon¬ 
siderable duchy, without any regard to the 
indisputable right of the king of Sweden, to 


21.3 


HISTORY OR EUROPE. 

^ 

llie services that crown Had rendered him, or 
to the want he might have of that alliance 
hereafter. The consequence was, that Sweden 
entered, with the emperor, the king of Spain, 
the elector of Bavaria, and the States General, into 
the alliance of guaranty, as it was called, about 
the year one thousand six hundred and eighty- 
three, and into the famous league of Ausburg, 
in one thousand six hundred and eighty-six. 

Since I have mentioned this league, and since 
we may date from it a more genera] and a more 
concerted opposition to France than there had 
been before, give me leave to recal some of the 
reflections that have presented themselves to my 
mind, in considering what I have read, and what 
I have heard related, concerning the passages of 
that time: they will be of use to form our 
judgment concerning later passages. If the king 
of France became an object of aversion on account 
of any invasions lie made, any deviations from 
public faith, any barbarities exercised where his 
arms prevailed, or the persecution of his pro- 
testant subjects; the emperor deserved to be such 
an object, at least as much as he, on the same 
accounts. The emperor was so too, but with 
tliis difference relatively to the political system 
of the west: the Austrian ambition and bigotry 
exerted themselves in distant countries, whose 
interests were not considered as a part of this 
system: for, otherwise there would have beei> 




214 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

as much reason for assisting the people of 
Hungary ancl of Transylvania against the em¬ 
peror, as there had been formerly for assisting 
the people of the seven united provinces against 
Spain, or as there have been lately for assisting 
them against France: but the ambition and bi¬ 
gotry of Lewis the fourteenth were exerted in 
the Low Countries, on the Rhine, in Italy, and 
in Spain, in the very midst of this system, if 
I may say so, and with success that could not 
fail to subvert it in time. The power of the 
house of Austria, that had been feared too long, 
was feared no longer: and that of the house oi 
Bourbon, by having been feared too late, was 
now grown terrible. The emperor was so intent 
on the establishment of his absolute power in 
Hungary, that he exposed the empire doubly 
to desolation and ruin for the sake of it. He 
left the frontier almost quite defenceless on the 
side of the Rhine, against the inroads and ra¬ 
vages of France: and by showing no mercy to 
the Hungarians, nor keeping any faith with 
them, he forced that miserable people into al¬ 
liances with the Turk, who invaded the empire 
and besieged Vienna. Even this event had no 
effect upon him. Your lordship will find, that 
Sobieski, king of Poland, who had forced the 
Turks to raise the siege, and had fixed the im¬ 
perial crown that tottered on his head, could not 
prevail on him to take those measures by which 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 21 5 

alone it was possible to cover tlie empire, to 
secure the King of Spain, and to reduce that 
power who was probably one day to dispute with 
him this prince’s succession. Tekeli and the 
malecontents made such demands as none but a 
tyrant could refuse; the preservation of their 
ancient privileges, liberty of conscience, the 
convocation of a free diet or parliament, and 
others of less importance: all was in vain; 
the war continued with them, and with the 
Turks; and France was left at liberty to push her 
enterprises, almost without opposition, against 
Germany and the Low Countries. The distress 
in both was so great, that the States General saw 
no other expedient for stopping the progress of 
the French arms, than a cessation of hostilities, 
or a truce of twenty years; which they nego¬ 
tiated, and which was accepted by the emperor 
and the king of Spain on the terms that Lewis 
the fourteenth thought lit to ofFer. By these 
terms, he was to remain in full and quiet pos¬ 
session of all he had acquired since the years 
one thousand six hundred and seventy-eight, 
and one thousand six hundred and seventy- 
nine; among which acquisitions, that of Luxem¬ 
burg and that of Strasburg were comprehended. 
The conditions of this truce were so advan¬ 
tageous to France, that all their intrigues were 
employed to obtain a definitive treaty of peace 
upon the same conditions. But this was neither 


fil6 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

the interest nor the intention of the other con¬ 
tracting powers. The imperial arms had been 
very successful against the Turks. This suc¬ 
cess, as well as the troubles that followed upon 
it in the Ottoman armies and at the Porte, gave 
a reasonable expectation of concluding a peace 
on that side ; and, this peace concluded, the 
emperor, and the empire, and the king of Spain 
would have been in a much better posture to 
treat with France. With these views, that were 
wise and just, the league ©f Ausburg was made 
between the emperor, the kings of Spain and 
Sweden, as princes of the empire, and the other 
circles and princes. This league was purely 
defensive. An express article declared it to be 
so; and as it had no other regard, it was not 
only conformable to the laws and constitutions 
of the empire, and to the practice of all nations, 
but even to the terms of the act of truce so 
lately concluded. This pretence, therefore, for 
breaking the truce, seizing the electorate of 
Cologn, invading the Palatinate, besieging Phi- 
lipsburg, and carrying unexpected and unde¬ 
clared war into the empire, could not be sup¬ 
ported : nor is it possible to read the reasons 
published by France at this time, and drawn 
from her fears of the imperial power, without 
laughter. As little pretence was there to complain, 
that the emperor refused to convert at once the 
truce into a definitive treaty; since, if he had 


msTonY of Fur,orE. 


523 7 

clone so, lie would have confirmed in a lump, 
and without any discussion, all the arbitrary de¬ 
crees of those chambers, or courts, that France 
had erected to cover her usurpations; and would 
have given up almost a sixth part of the pro¬ 
vinces of the empire, that France one way or 
other had possessed herself of. The pretensions 
of the Duchess of Orleans, on the succession of 
her father and her brother, which were dis¬ 
puted by the then elector Palatine, and were to 
be determined bv the laws and customs of the 
empire, afforded as little pretence for beginning 
this war, as any of the former allegations. The 
exclusion of the cardinal of Furstenberg, who had 
been elected to the archbishopric of Cologn, was 
capable of being aggravated : but even in this 
case, his most Christian majesty opposed his 
judgment and his authority against the judgment 
and authority of that holy father, whose eldest 
son he was proud to be called. In short, the 
true reason why Lewis the fourteenth began 
that cruel war with the empire, two years after 
he had concluded a cessation of hostilities for 
twenty, was this: he resolved to beep what he 
had got, and therefore he resolved to encourage 
the Turks to continue the war. He did this 
effectually, by invading Germany at the very 
instant when the Sultan was suing for peace. 
Notwithstanding this, the Turks were in treaty 
again the following year: and good policy should 


8 HISTORY OF FURORE. 

have obliged the emperor, since he could not 
hope to carry on this war and that against 
France at the same time with vigour and effect, 
to conclude a peace with the least dangerous 
enemy of the two. The decision of this dispute 
with France could not be deferred; his designs 
against the Hungarians were in part accom¬ 
plished, for his son was declared king, and the 
settlement of that crown in his family was made; 
and the rest of these, as well as those that he 
formed against the Turks, might be deferred. 
But the councils of Vienna judged differently, 
and insisted even at this critical moment on the 
most exorbitant terms; on some of such a na¬ 
ture^ that the Turks showed more humanity 
and a better sense of religion in refusing, than 
they in asking them. Thus the war went on 
in Hungary, and proved a constant diversion in 
favor of France, during the whole course of 
that which Lewis the fourteenth began at this 
time: for the treaty of Carlowitz was posterior 
to that of Ryswic. The empire, Spain, England, 
and Holland engaged in the war with France, 
and on them the emperor left the burden of it. 
In the short war of one thousand six hundred 
and sixty-seven, he was not so much as a party; 
and instead of assisting the king of Spain, which, 
it must be owned, he was in no good condition 
oi doing, he bargained for dividing that prince’s 
succession, as I have observed above. In the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 219 

War of one thousand six hundred and seventy- 
two he made some feeble efforts; in this of one 
thousand six hundred and eighty-eight he did 
still less; and in the war which broke out at the 
beginning of the present century he.did nothing, 
at least after the first campaign in Italy, and 
after the engagements that England and Holland 
took by the grand alliance. In a word, from 
the time that an opposition to France became a 
common cause in Europe, the house of Austria 
has been a clog upon it in many instances, and 
of considerable assistance 'to it in none. The 
accession of England to this cause, which was 
brought about by the revolution of one thousand 
six hundred and eighty-eight, might have made 
amends, and more than amends, one would think, 
for this defect, and have thrown superiority of 
power and of success on the side of the confede¬ 
rates, with whom she took part against France. 
This, I say, might be imagined, without over¬ 
rating the power of England, or undervaluing 
that of France; and it was imagined at that lime. 
How it proved otherwise in the event; how 
France came triumphant out of the war that 
ended by the treaty of Ryswic, and though she 
gave up a great deal, yet preserved the greatest 
and the best part of her conquests and acquisi¬ 
tions made since the treaties of Westphalia and 

* 

the Pyrenees; how she acquired, by the gift of 
Spain, that whole monarchy for one of her 


220 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


princes, though she had no reason to expect 
the least part of it without a war at one time, 
nor the great lot of it even hy a war at any time; 
in short, how she wound up advantageously the 
ambitious system she had been fifty years in 
weaving; how she concluded a war, in which she 
was defeated on every side; and wholly exhausted, 
with little diminution of the provinces and bar¬ 
riers acquired to France, and with the quiet 
j^ossession of Spain and the Indies to a prince 
of the house of Bourbon—all this, my lord, will 
he the subject of your researches, when you 
come dow r n to the latter part of the last period 
of modern history. 


HISTORY OF EUROTE. 


522 1 


» 


LETTER VIII. 


The same subject continued from the year one thousand 
six. hundred and eighty-eight. 


YOUR lordship will find that the objects 
proposed by the alliance of one thousand six 
hundred and eighty-nine between the emperor 
and the States, to which England acceded, and 
which was the foundation of the whole con¬ 
federacy then formed, were no less than to 
restore all things to the terms of the West¬ 
phalian and Pyrenean treaties, by the war; and 
to preserve them in that state, after the war, 
by a defensive alliance and guaranty of the same 
confederate powers against France. The par¬ 
ticular as well as general meaning of this engage¬ 
ment was plain enough: and if it had not been 
so, the sense of it would have been sufficientlv 

' %r 

determined, by that separate article, in which 
England and Holland obliged themselves to 

O O 

assist the “ house of Austria, in taking and 
keeping possession of the Spanish monarchy, 


i 


222 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


whenever the case should happen of the death 
of Charles the second, without lawful heirs. 5 ’ 
This engagement was double, and thereby, rela¬ 
tive to the whole political system of Europe, 
alike affected by the power and pretensions of 
France. Hitherto the power of France had been 
alone regarded, and her pretensions seemed to 
have been forgot: or to what purpose should 
they have been remembered, whilst Europe was 
so unhappily constituted, that the states, at 
whose expense she increased her power, and 
their friends and allies, thought that they did 
enough upon every occasion if they made some 
tolerable composition with her? They who 
were not in circumstances to refuse confirming 
present, were little likely to take effectual mea¬ 
sures against future usurpations. But now, as 
the alarm was greater than ever, by the outrages 
that France had committed and the intrigues 
she had carried on, by the little regard she had 
shown to public faith,, and by the airs of authority 
she had assumed twenty years together; so was 
the spirit against her raised to a higher pitch, 
and the means of reducing her power, or at 
least of checking it, were increased. The princes 
and states who had neglected or favored the 
growth of this power, which all of them had 
done in their turns, saw their error; saw the 
necessity of repairing it, and saw that unless 
they could check the power of France by unit- 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 2 25 

ing a power superior to hers, it would be im¬ 
possible to hinder her from succeeding in her 
great designs on the Spanish succession. The 
court of England had submitted, not many years 
before, to abet her usurpations, and the king 
of England had stooped to be her pensioner. 
But the crime was not national: on the con¬ 
trary, the nation had cried out loudly against 
it, even whilst it was committing; and as soon 
as ever the abdication of King James and the 
elevation of the prince of Orange to the throne 
of England happened, the nation engaged with 
all imaginable zeal in the common cause of 
Europe, to reduce the exorbitant power of 
France, to prevent her future and to revenge 
her past attempts; for even a spirit of revenge 
prevailed, and the war was a war of anger as 
well as of interest. 

Unhappily this zeal was neither well con¬ 
ducted nor well seconded. It was zeal without 
success in the first of the two wars that fol¬ 
lowed the year one thousand six hundred and 
eighty-eight: and zeal without knowledge, in 
both of them. I enter into no detail concerning 
the events of these two wars. This only I 
observe on the first of them, that the treaties 
of Ryswic were far from answering the ends 
proposed and the engagements taken by the first 
grand alliance. The power of France, with re¬ 
spect to extent of dominions and strength of 


224 


HISTORY OF EUROPE, 


barrier, was not reduced to the terms of the 
Pyrenean treaty, nor to those of the treaty 
of Nimeghen. Lorrain was restored indeed witli 
very considerable reserves, and the places taken 
or usurped on the oilier side of the Rhine; but 
then Slrasburg was yielded up absolutely to 
France by the emperor and by the empire. The 
concessions to Spain were great, but so were 
the conquests and the incroacliments made upon 
her by France, since the treaty of Nimeghen : 
and she got little at Ryswic, 1 believe nothing 
more than she had saved at Nimeghen before. 
Ail these concessions, however, as well as the 
acknowledgement of King William, and others 
made by Lewis the fourteenth after he had taken 
A 111 and Barcelona,, even during the course of 
the negocialions, compared with the losses and 
repeated defeats of the allies and the ill state of 
the confederacy, surprised the generality of man¬ 
kind, who had not been accustomed to so much 
moderation and generosity on the part of this 
prince. Rut the pretensions of the house of 
Bourbon on the Spanish succession remained 
the same. Nothing had been done to weaken 
them; nothing was prepared to oppose them; 
and the opening of this succession was visibly 
at hand: for Charles the second had been in 
immediate danger of dying about this time. His 
deatli could not be a remote event; and all the 
good queen’s endeavours to be got with child 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 2 25 

had proved ineffectual. The league dissolved, 
all the forces of the confederates dispersed, and 
many disbanded; France continuing armed, her 
forces by sea and land increased and held in 
readiness to act on all sides, it was plain that 
the confederates had failed in the first object of 
the grand alliance, that of reducing the power 
of France; by succeeding in which alone they 
could have been able to keep the second engage¬ 
ment, that of securing the succession of Spain 
to the house of Austria. 

After this peace, what remained to be done? 
In the whole nature of things there remained 
but three: to abandon all care of the Spanish 
succession was one; to compound with France 
upon this succession was another; and to prepare, 
like her, during the interval of peace, to make 
an advantageous war whenever Charles the second 
should die, was a third. Now the first of these 
was to leave Spain, and, in leaving Spain, to 
leave all Europe in some sort at the mercy of 
France; since whatever disposition the Spaniards 
should make of their crown, they were quite 
unable to support it against France; since the 
emperor could do little without his alliance; and 
since Bavaria, the third pretender, could do still 
less, and might find, in such a case, his account 
perhaps better in treating with the house of 
Bourbon than with that of Austria. More needs 
not be said on this head 5 but on the other two, 


22 6 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

wliicli I shall consider together, several facts are 
proper to be mentioned, and several reflections 
necessary to be made. 

We might have counter-worked, no doubt, 
in their own methods of policy, the councils of 
France, who made peace to dissolve the con¬ 
federacy, and great concessions, with very suspi¬ 
cious generosity, to gain the Spaniards: we 
might have waited, like them, that is in arms, 
the death of Charles the second, and have for¬ 
tified in the mean time the dispositions of the 
king, the court, and people of Spain, against the 
pretensions of France: we might have made the 
peace which was made some time after that, 
between the emperor and the Turks, and have 
obliged the former at any rate to have secured 
the peace of Hungary, and to have prepared, by 
these and other expedients, for the war that 
would inevitably break out on the death of the 
king of Spain. 

But all such measures were rendered impracti¬ 
cable, by the emperor chiefly. Experience had 
shown, that the powers who engaged in alliance 
with him must expect to take the whole burden 
of his cause upon themselves; and that Hun¬ 
gary would maintain a perpetual diversion in 
favor of France, since he could not resolve to 
lighten the tyrannical yoke he had established 
in that country and in Transylvania, nor his 
ministers to part with the immense confiscations 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 227 

they had appropriated to themselves. Past expe¬ 
rience showed this; and the experience that 
followed, confirmed it very fatally. But fur¬ 
ther; there was not only little assistance to be 
expected from him by those who should engage 
in his quarrel; he did them hurt of another 
kind, and deprived them of many advantages 
by false measures of policy and unskilful nego- 
ciations. Whilst the death of Charles the second 
was expected almost daily, the court of Yienna 
seemed to have forgot the court of Madrid, and 
all the pretensions on that crown. When the 
count d’Harracb was sent thither, the imperial 
councils did something worse. The king of 
Spain was ready to declare the archduke Charles 
his successor; he was desirous to have this 
young prince sent into Spain: the bent of the 
people was in favor of Austria, or it had been 
so, and might have been easily turned the same 
way again: at court no cabal was yet formed in 
favor of Bourbon, and a very weak intrigue 
was on foot in favor of the electoral prince 
of Bavaria. Not only Charles might have been 
on the spot ready to reap the succession, but 
a German army might have been there to de¬ 
fend it; for the court of Madrid insisted on 
having twelve thousand of these troops, and, 
rather than not to have them, offered to con¬ 
tribute to the payment of them privately; be¬ 
cause it would have been too unpopular among 

Q 2 





History of Europe. 


22 8 

the Spaniards, and too prejudicial to the Austrian 
interest, to have had it known that the emperor 
declined the payment of a body of his own 
troops that were demanded to secure that mo¬ 
narchy to his son. These proposals were half 
refused, and half evaded; and in return to the 
offer of the crown of Spain to the archduke, 
the imperial councils asked the government of 
Milan for him. They thought it a point of deep 
policy to secure the Italian provinces, and to 
leave to England and Holland the care of the 
Low Countries, of Spain, and the Indies. Ey 
declining these proposals, the house of Austria 
renounced in some sort the whole succession : 
at least she gave England and Holland reasons, 
whatever engagements these powers had taken, 
to refuse the harder task of putting her into 
possession by force; when she might, and would 
not, procure to the English and Dutch, &nd her 
other allies, the easier task of defending her in 
this possession. 

1 said that the measures mentioned above were 
rendered impracticable by the emperor chiefly, 
because they were rendered so likewise by other 
circumstances at the same conjuncture. A prin¬ 
cipal one I shall mention, and it shall be drawn 
from the state of our own country and the dispo¬ 
sition of our people. Let us take this up from 
king William’s accession to our crown; During 
the whole progress that Lewis the fourteenth 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 2 2C) 

made towards such, exorbitant power, as gave 
him well-grounded hopes of acquiring -at last to 
his family the Spanish monarchy, England had. 
been either an idle spectator of all that passed 
on the continent, or a faint and uncertain ally 
against France, or a warm and sure ally on her 
side, or a partial mediator between her and the 
powers confederated in their common defence. 
The revolution produced as great a change in our 
foreign conduct as in our domestic establishment; 
and our nation engaged with great spirit in the 
war of one thousand six hundred and eighty-eight. 
But then this spirit was rash, presumptuous, 
and ignorant; ill-conducted at home, and ill- 
seconded abroad : all which has been touched 
already. We had waged no long war on the 
continent, nor been very deeply concerned in 
foreign confederacies, since the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries. The history of Edward the 
third, however, and of the first twelve or fifteen 
years of Henry the sixth, might have taught us 
some general but useful lessons, drawn from 
remote times, but applicable to the present. So 
might the example of Henry the eighth, who 
squandered away great sums for the profit of 
taking a town, or the honor of having an em¬ 
peror in his pay; and who divided afterwards by 
treaty' the kingdom of France between himself 
and Charles the fifth, with success so little 
answerable to such an undertaking, that it is 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


200 

hard to believe his imperial and English ma¬ 
jesty were both in earnest: il they were so, 
they were both the bubbles of their presump¬ 
tion. But it seems more likely that Henry the 
eighth was bubbled on this occasion by the 
great hopes that Charles held out to flatter his 
vanity: as he had been bubbled by his father- 
in-law, Ferdinand, at the beginning of his reign, 
in the war of Navarre. But these reflections 
w r ere not made, nor had we enough considered 
the example of Elizabeth, the last of our princes 
who had made any considerable figure abroad, 
nnd from whom we might have learned to act 
with vigour, but to engage with caution, and 
always to proportion our assistance according 
to our abilities and the real necessities of our 
allies. The frontiers of France were now so 
fortified, her commerce and her naval force 
were so increased, her armies were grown so 
numerous, her troops were so disciplined, so 
inured to war, and so animated by a long 
course of successful campaigns, that they who 
looked on the situation of Europe could not 
fail to see how difficult the enterprise of reduc¬ 
ing her power was become. Difficult as it was, 
we were obliged on every account, and by rea¬ 
sons of all kinds, to engage in it: but then we 
should have engaged with more forecast, and 
have conducted ourselves in the management of 
it, not with less alacrity and spirit, but with 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


201 


more order, more economy, and a belter appli¬ 
cation ol our efforts. 13ut they who governed 
were glad to engage us at any rate ; and we 
entered on this great scheme of action, as our 
nation is too apt to do, hurried on by the ruling 
passion of the day. I have been told by several, 
who were on the stage of the world at this time, 
that the generality of our people believed, and 
were encouraged to believe, the war could not 
be long, if the king was vigorously supported : 
and there is a humdrum speech of a speaker 
of the house of commons, I think, who humbly 
desired his majesty to take this opportunity of 
reconquering his ancient duchy of Acquitain. 
We were soon awakened from these gaudy 
dreams. In seven or eight years no impression 
had been made on France, that was besieged as 
it were on every side : and after repeated de¬ 
feats in the Low Countries, where king William 
laid the principal stress of the war, his sole 
triumph was the retaking of Namur, that had 
been taken by the French a few years before. 
Unsustained by success abroad, we are not to 
wonder that the spirit flagged at home; nor 
that the discontents of those who were averse 
to the established government uniting with the 
far greater number of those who disliked the 
administration, inflamed the general discontents 
of the nation, oppressed with taxes, pillaged by 
usurers, plundered at sea, and disappointed on 


2252 ‘ HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

land. As we run into extremes always, some 
would have continued this war at any rate, even 
at the same rate : but it was not possible they 
should prevail in such a situation of affairs and 
such a disposition of minds. They who got by 
ilie war, and made immense fortunes by the 
necessities of the public, were not so numerous 
nor so powerful as they have been since. The 
monied interest was not yet a rival able to cope 
with the landed interest, either in the nation or 
in parliament. The great corporations that had 
been erected, more to serve the turn of parly 
than for any real national use, aimed indeed, 
even then, at the strength and influence which 
they have since acquired in the legislature; but 
they had not made the same progress by promo¬ 
ting national corruption, as they and the court 
have made since. In short, the other extreme 
prevailed. The generality of people grew as 
fond of getting out of the war, as they had 
been of entering into it: and thus far, perhaps, 
considering how it had been conducted, they 
were not much to be blamed. But this was not 
all; for when king William had made the peace, 
our martial spirit became at once so pacific, that 
we seemed resolved to meddle no more in the 
affairs of the continent, at least to employ our 
arms no more in the quarrels that might arise 
there ; and accordingly we reduced our troops 
in England to seven thousand men. 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 200 

✓ 

I have sometimes considered, in reflecting on 
these passages, what I should have done, if 1 had 
sat m parliament at that time ; and have been 
forced to own myself, that I should have voted 
for disbanding the army then, as I voted in the 
following parliament for censuring the partition- 
treaties. I am forced to own this, because I re¬ 
member how imperfect my notions Avere of the 
situation of Europe in that extraordinary crisis, 
and how much I saw the true interest of my oavu 
country in an half light. But, my Lord, I own it 
with some shame ; because in truth nothing 
could be more absurd than the conduct \\ r e held. 
What! because Ave had not reduced the poAver 
of France by the war, nor excluded the house 
of Bourbon from the Spanish succession, nor 
compounded with her upon it by the peace; and 
because the house of Austria had not helped 
herself, nor put it into our poAver to help her 
with more advantage and better prospect of suc¬ 
cess;—Avere we to lea\ r e that Avhole succession 
open to the invasions of France, and to suffer 
even the contingency to subsist, of seeing those 
monarchies united? What! because it Avas be¬ 
come extravagant, after the trials so lately made, 
to think ourselves any longer engaged by treaty 
or obliged by good policy to put the house of 
Austria in possession of the whole Spanish mo¬ 
narchy, and to defend her in this possession by 
force of arms,—were Ave to leave theAvhole at the 


•■r / 

204 


HISTORY OF FURORE. 


mercy of France? If we were not to do so, if 
we were not to do one of the three things that 
I said above remained to he done, and if the 
emperor put it out of our power to do ano¬ 
ther of them with advantage, were we to put 
it still more out of our power, and to wait 
unarmed for the death of the king of Spain? In 
line, if we had not the prospect of disputing with 
France, so succesfully as we might have had it, 
the Spanish succession, whenever it should be 
open- were we not only to show by disarming, 
that we would not dispute it at all, hut to cen¬ 
sure likewise the second of the three things men¬ 
tioned above, and which king William put in 
practice, the compounding with France, to pre¬ 
vent, if possible, a war, in which we were averse 
to engage ? 

Allow me to push these reflections a little 
further, and to observe to your lordship, that if 
the proposal of sending the archduke into Spain 
had been accepted in time by the imperial court, 
and taken effect and become a measure of the 
confederacy, that war indeed would have been 
protracted; but France could not have hindered 
the passage of this prince and his German forces: 
and our fleet would have been better employed 
in escorting them, and in covering the coasts of 
Spain and of ihe dominions of that crown both 
in Europe and in America, than it was in so 
many unmeaning expeditions from the battle of 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 235 

La Hogue to the end of the war. France indeed 
would have made her utmost efforts to have had 
satisfaction on her pretensions, as ill-founded as 
they were. She would have ended that war, as 
we began the next, when we demanded a rea¬ 
sonable satisfaction for the emperor: and though 
I think that the allies would have had, in very 
many respects, more advantages in defending 
Spain, than in attacking France; yet, upon a sup¬ 
position that the defence would have been as ill- 
conducted as the attack was, and that by conse- 
quence, whether Charles the second had lived 1o 
the conclusion of this war, or had died before it, 
the war must have ended in some partition or 
other, this partition would have been made by 
the Spaniards themselves. They had been forced 
to compound with France on her former pre¬ 
tensions; and they must and they would have 
compounded on these, with an Austrian prince 
on the throne, just as they compounded, and 
probably much better than they compounded, on 
the pretensions we supported against them, when 
they had a prince of Bourbon on their throne. 
France could not have distressed the Spaniards, 
nor have over-run their monarchy, if they had 
been united- and they would have been united 
in this case, and supported by the whole confe¬ 
deracy: as we distressed both France and thepi, 
over-run their monarchy in one hemisphere, and 
might have done so in both, when they were dis- 


236 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

united, and supported by France alone. France 
would not have acted, in such negociations, the 
ridiculous part which the emperor acted in those 
that led to the peace of Utrecht, nor have made 
her bargain worse by neglecting to make it in 
time. But the war ending as it did, though I 
cannot see how king William could avoid leaving 
the crown of Spain and that entire monarchy at 
the discretion of Lewis the fourteenth, otherwise 
than by compounding to prevent a new war he 
was in no sort prepared to make; yet it is unde¬ 
niable, that, by consenting to a partition of their 
monarchy, he threw the Spaniards into the arms 
of France. The first partition might have taken 
place, perhaps, if the electoral prince of Bavaria 
had lived, whom the French and Spaniards too 
would have seen much more willingly than the 
archduke on the throne of Spain. For among all 
the parties into which that court was divided 
in one thousand six hundred and ninety-eight, 
when this treaty was made, that of Austria was 
grown the weakest, by the disgust taken at a 
German queen, and at the rapacity and insolence 
of her favorites. The French were looked upon 
with esteem and kindness at Madrid; but the 
Germans were become, or growing to be, objects 
of contempt to the ministers and of aversion to 
the people. The electoral prince died in one 
thousand six hundred and ninety-nine. The star 
of Austria, so fatal to all those who were obstacles 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 25 7 

to tlie ambition of that house, prevailed, as the 
elector expressed himself in the first pangs of 
his grief. The slate of things changed very much 
by his death. The archduke was to have Spain 
and the Indies, according to a second partition: 
and the Spaniards, who had expressed great 
resentment at the first, were pushed beyond their 
bearing by this. They soon appeared to be so; 
for the second treaty of partition was signed in 
March one thousand seven hundred; and the 
will was made, to the best of my remembrance, 
in the October following. I shall not enter here 
into many particulars concerning these great 
events : they will be related faithfully, and 
I hope fully explained, in a work which your 
lordship may take the trouble very probably of 
perusing some time or other, and which I shall 
rather leave than give to the public. Some¬ 
thing, however, must be said more, to continue 
and wind up this summary of the latter period of 
modern history. 

France then Staw her advantage, and improved 
it no doubt, though not in the manner nor with 
the circumstances that some lying scribblers of 
memorials and anecdotes have advanced. She 
had sent one of the ablest men of her court to 
that of Madrid, the marshal of Harcourt, and 
she had stipulated in the second treaty of par¬ 
tition, that the archduke should go neither into 
Spain nor the dutchy of Milan, during the life 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


^58 

of Charles the second. She was willing to have 
her option between a treaty and a will. By the 
acceptation of the will, all king William’s mea¬ 
sures were broken. He was unprepared for war 
as much as when he made these treaties to pre¬ 
vent one; and if he meant in making them, what 
some wise but refining men have suspected, 
and what I confess I see no reason to believe, 
only to gain time by the difficulty of executing 
them, and to prepare for making war, whenever 
the death of the king of Spain should alarm 
mankind, and rouse his own subjects out of 
their inactivity and neglect of foreign interests: 
if so, he was disappointed in that too; for France 
took possession of the whole monarchy at once, 
and with universal concurrence, at least without 
opposition or difficulty, in favor of the duke 
of Anjou. By what has been observed, or hinted 
rather, very shortly, and I fear a little confu¬ 
sedly, it is plain, that reducing the power of 
France, and securing the whole Spanish suc¬ 
cession to the house of Austria, were two points 
that king William, at the head of the British 
and Dutch commonwealths, and of the greatest 
confederacy Europe had seen, was obliged to 
give up. All the acquisitions that France cared 
to keep for the maintenance of her power were 
confirmed to her by the treaty ofRyswic; and 
king William allowed, indirectly at least, the 
pretensions of the house of Bourbon to the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 209 

Spanisli succession, as Lewis llie fourteenth al¬ 
lowed, in the same manner, those of the house 
ol Austria, by the treaties of partition. Strange 
situation ! in which no expedient remained to 
prepare for an event, visibly so near, and of 
such vast importance as the death of the king 
ol Spain, but a partition of his monarchy, with¬ 
out his consent or his knowledge! If king 
William had not made this partition, the em¬ 
peror would have made one, and with as little 
regard to trade, to the barrier of the seven pro¬ 
vinces, or to the general system of Europe, as 
had been showed by him when he made the 
private treaty with France already mentioned, in 
one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight. The 
ministers of Vienna were not wanting to insi¬ 
nuate to those of France overtures of a separate 
treaty, as more conducive to their common in¬ 
terests than the accession of his imperial majesty 
to that of partition. But the councils of Ver¬ 
sailles judged very reasonably, that a partition 
made with England and Holland would be more 
effectual than any other, if a partition was to 
take place; and that such a partition would be 
just as effectual as one made with the emperor, 
to furnish arguments to the emissaries of France, 
and motives to the Spanish councils, if a will, 
in favor of France could be obtained. I repeat 
it again; I cannot see what king William could 
do in such circumstances as he found himself in 


tl 4o HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

after thirty years struggle, except what he did : 
neither can I see how he could do what he did, 
especially after the resentment expressed by the 
.Spaniards, and the furious memorial presented 
by Canales on the conclusion of the first treaty 
of partition, without apprehending that the con¬ 
sequence would be a will in favor of France. 
He was in the worst of all political circum¬ 
stances, and that wherein no one good measure 
remains to be taken; and out of which lie left 
the two nations, at the head of whom he had 
been so long, to fight and negociate themselves 
and their confederates as well as they could. 

When this will was made and accepted, Lewis 
the fourteenth had succeeded, and the powers 
in opposition to him had failed, in all the great 
objects of interest and ambition, which they had 
kept in sight for more than forty years; that is, 
from the beginning of the present period. The 
actors changed their parts in the tragedy that 
followed. The power, that had so long and so 
cruelly attacked, w r as now to defend, the Spanish 
monarchy; and the powers, that had so long 
defended, were now to attack it. Let us see 
how this was brought about: and that we may- 
see it the' better, and make a better judgment 
of all that passed from the death of Charles the 
second to the peace of Utrecht, let us go back 
to the time of his death, and consider the cir¬ 
cumstances that formed this complicated slate 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


241 


of affairs in three views; a view of right, a view 
of policy, and a view of power. 

The right of succeeding to the crown of Spain 
would have been undoubtedly in the children 

of Maria Theresa, that is, in the house of Boar- 

, 

bon, if this right had not been barred by the 
solemn renunciations so often mentioned. The 
pretensions of the house of Austria were founded 
on these renunciations, on the ratification of 
them by the Pyrenean treaty, and the confir¬ 
mation of them by tbe will of Philip the fourth 
The pretensions of the house of Bourbon were 
founded on a supposition—it was indeed no more, 
and a vain one too—that these renunciations 
were in their nature null. On this foot the 
dispute of right stood during the life of Charles 
the second, and on the same it would have con¬ 
tinued to stand even after his death, if the re- 
nunciationshad remained unshaken; if llis will, 
like that of his father, had confirmed them, and 
had left the crown, in pursuance of them, to 
the house of Austria. But the will of Charles 
the second, annulling these renunciations, took 
away the sole foundation of the Austrian pre¬ 
tensions ; for, however this act might be obtained, 
it was just as valid as his father’s, and was con¬ 
firmed by the universal concurrence of the 
Spanish nation to the new settlement he made 
of that crown. Let it be, as I think it ought to 
be, granted, that the true heirs could not claim 

11 




242 HISTORY OR EUROPE. 

against renunciations that were, if I may say 
so, conditions of their birth: but Charles the 
second had certainly as good a right to change 
the course of succession agreeable to the order 
of nature and the constitution of that monarchy, 
after his true heirs were born, as Philip the 
fourth had to change it, contrary to this order 
and this constitution, before they were born, or 
at any oilier time. He had as good a right, in 
short, to dispense with the Pyrenean treaty, and 
to set it aside in this respect, as his father had 
to make it: so that the renunciations being an¬ 
nulled by that party to the Pyrenean treaty who 
had exacted them, they could be deemed no 
longer binding, by virtue of this treaty, on the 
party who had made them. The sole question 
that remained, therefore, between these rival 
houses, as to right, was this 5 whether the en¬ 
gagements taken by Lewis the fourteenth in 
the partition treaties obliged him to adhere to 
the terms of the last of them in all events, and 
to deprive his family of the succession, which 
the king of Spain opened, and the Spanish 
nation offered to them; rather than to depart 
from a composition he had made, on pretensions 
that were disputable then, but were now out 
of dispute? It may be said, and it was said, 
that the treaties of partition being absolute, 
without any condition or exception relative to 
any disposition the king of Spain had made, or 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 245 

113 lglit make of liis succession, in favor of 
Bourbon or Austria; the disposition made by 
liis will, in favor of the duke of Anjou, could 
not affect the engagements so lately taken by 
Lewis the fourteenth in these treaties, nor dis¬ 
pense with a literal observation of them. This 
might be true on strict principles of justice; 
but I apprehend that none of these powers 
who exclaimed so loudly against the perfidy of 
France in this case, would have been more scru¬ 
pulous in a parallel case. The maxim “ sum- 
mum jus est summa injuria ” would have been 
quoted, and the rigid letter of treaties would 
have been softened by an equitable interpretation, 
of their spirit and intention. His imperial ma¬ 
jesty, above all, had not the least color of right 
to exclaim against France on this occasion; for, 
in general, if his family was to be stripped of 
all the dominions they have acquired by breach 
of faith, and means much worse than the ac¬ 
ceptation of the will, even allowing all the in¬ 
vidious circumstances imputed to the conduct 
of France to be true, the Austrian family would 
sink from their present grandeur to that low 
state they were in two or three centuries ago. 
In particular, the emperor, who had constantly 
refused to accede to the treaties of partition, or 
to submit to the dispositions made by them, 
had not the least plausible pretence to object to 
Lewis tiie fourteenth, that he departed from 

u 2 


2 44 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


them. Thus, I think, the right of the two 
houses stood, on the death of Charles the se¬ 
cond. The right of the Spaniards, an inde¬ 
pendent nation, to regulate their own succession, 
or to receive the prince whom the dying mo¬ 
narch had called to it; and the right of England 
and Holland to regulate the succession, to divide 
and parcel out this monarchy in different lots, 
it would be equally foolish to go about to 
establish: one is too evident, the other too 
absurd, to admit of any proof. But enough has 
been said concerning right, which was in truth 
little regarded by any of the parties concerned 
immediately or remotely in the whole course 
of these proceedings. Particular interests were 
alone regarded, and these were pursued as am¬ 
bition, fear, resentment, and vanity directed: I 
mean the ambition of the two houses contending 

o 

for superiority of power; the fear of England 
and Holland, lest this superiority should become 
too great in either; the resentment of Spain at 
the dismemberment of that monarchy projected 
by the partition-treaties; and the vanity of that 
nation, as well as the princes of the house of 
Bourbon: for as vanity mingled with resentment 
to make the will, vanity had a great share in 
determining the acceptation of it. 

Let us now consider the same conjuncture 
in tL view of policy. The policy of the Spanish 
councils was this : they could not brook that 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. *245 

tiieir monarchy should be divided* and this 
principle is expressed strongly in the will 
of Charles the second, where he exhorts his 
subjects not to suffer any dismemberment or 
diminution of a monarchy founded by his pre¬ 
decessors with so much glory. Too weak to hin¬ 
der this dismemberment by their own strength, 
too well apprised of the little force and little 
views of the court of Vienna, and their old 
allies having engaged to procure this dismem¬ 
berment even by force of arms; nothing re¬ 
mained for them to do, upon this principle, but 
to detach France from the engagements of the 
partition-treaties, by giving their whole mo¬ 
narchy to a prince of the house of Bourbon. 
As much as may have been said concerning the 
negociations of France to obtain a will in hep 
favor, and yet to keep in reserve the advantages 
stipulated for her by the partition-treaties, if 
such a will could not be obtained, and though 
I am persuaded that the marshal of Harcourt, 
who helped to procure this will, made his court 
to Lewis the fourteentli as much as the marshal 
of Tallard, who negociated the partitions; yet 
it is certain, that the acceptation of the will 
was not a measure definitely taken at Versailles 
when the king of Spain died. The alternative 
divided those councils, and, without entering at 
this time into the arguments urged on each 
side, adhering to the partitions seemed the cause 


HISTORY OF FtJIlOTF. 


1246 

of France, accepting the will that of the lions# 
of Bonrbon. 

It has been said by men of great weight in 
the councils of Spain, and was said at that time 
by men as little fond of the house of Bourbon 
or of the French nation as their fathers had 
been, that, if England and Holland had not 
formed a confederacy and begun a war, they 
would have made Philip the fifth as good a 
Spaniard as any of the preceding Philips, and 
not have endured the influence of French coun¬ 
cils in the administration of their government; 
but that we threw them entirely into the hands 
of France when we began the war, because the 
fleets and armies of this crown being necessary 
to tlieir defence, they could not avoid submit¬ 
ting to this influence as long as the same ne¬ 
cessity continued; and, in fact, we have seen 
that the influence lasted no longer. But not¬ 
withstanding this, it must be confessed, that a 
war was unavoidable. The immediate securing 
of commerce and of barriers, the preventing an 
union of the two monarchies in some future 
time, and the preservation of a certain degree 
at least of equality in the scales of power, were 
points too important to England, Holland, and 
the rest of Europe, to be rested on the mode¬ 
ration of French and the vigour of Spanish 
councils, under a prince of the house of France. 
If satisfaction to the house of Austria, to whose 




Hr STORY OF EUROPE. 2 '±7 

rights England and Holland showed no great re¬ 
gard, whilst they were better founded than they 
were since the will, had been alone concerned; 
a drop of blood spilt, or five shillings spent in 
the quarrel, would have been too much pro¬ 
fusion. But this was properly the scale into 
which it became the common interest to throw 
all the weight that could be taken out of that of 
Bourbon; and therefore your lordship will find, 
that when negociations with d’Avaux were set 
on foot in Holland to prevent a war, or rather 
on our part to gain time to prepare for it, in 
which view the Dutch and we had both acknow¬ 
ledged Philip king of Spain; the great article 
we insisted on was, that reasonable satisfaction 
should be given the emperor, upon his preten¬ 
sions founded on the treaty of partition: we 
could do no otherwise; and France, who offered 
to make the treaty of Ryswic the foundation of 
that treaty, could do no otherwise than refuse 
to consent that the treaty of partition should be 
so, after accepting the will, and thereby engaging 
to oppose all partition or dismemberment of the 
Spanish monarchy. I should mention none of 
the other demands of England and Holland, if I 
could neglect to point out to your lordship’s ob¬ 
servation, that the same artifice was employed, 
at this time, to perplex the more a negociation 
that could not succeed on oilier accounts, as we 
saw employed in the course of the war, by the 


248 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


English and Dutch ministers, to prevent the 
success of negocialions that might and ought to 
have succeeded. The demand I mean, is that 
of “ a liberty not only to explain the terms pro¬ 
posed, but to increase or amplify them in the 
course of the negotiation*” I do not remember 
the words, but this is the sense, and this was 
the meaning of the confederates in bo ill cases. 

In the former, king William was determined to 
begin the war by all the rules of good policy; since 
he could not obtain, nay, since France could not 
grant, in that conjuncture nor without being* 
forced to it by a war, what he was obliged by 
these very rules to demand. He intended, there¬ 
fore, nothing by this negociation, if it may be called 
such, but to preserve forms and appearances; and 
perhaps, which many have suspected, to have time 
to prepare, as I hinted just now, both abroad and 
at home. Many things concurred to favor his 
preparations abroad. The alarm, that had been 
given by the acceptation of the will, was increased 
by every step that France made to secure the 
effect of it. Thus, for instance, the surprising 
and seizing the Dutch troops, in the same night 
and at the same hour, that were dispersed in the 
garrisons of the Spanish Netherlands, was not 
excused by the necessity of securing those places 
to the obedience of Philip, nor softened by the 
immediate dismission of those troops. The im¬ 
pression it made was much the same as those of 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


24g 

llie surprises find seizures of France in former 
usurpations. No one knew then, that the sove- 
reignty of the ten provinces was to be yielded 
up to the elector of Bavaria: and every one 
saw that there remained no longer any barrier 
between France and the seven provinces. At 
home, the disposition of the nation was abso¬ 
lutely turned to a Avar with France, on the death 
ol king James the second, by the acknowledg¬ 
ment Lewis the fourteenth made of his son as 
king of England. I know what has been said in 
excuse for this measure, taken, as I believe, on 
female importunity; but certainly without any 
regard to public faith, to the true interest of 
France in those circumstances, or to the true 
interest of the prince thus acknowledged, in 
any. It was said, that the treaty of Ptyswic 
obliging his most Christian majesty only not 
to disturb king William in his possession, he 
might without any violation of it have acknow¬ 
ledged this prince as king of England; according 
to the political casuistry of the French, and the 
example of France, who finds no fault with the 
powers that treat with the kings of England, 
although the kings of England retain the title 
of kings of France; as well as the example of 
Spain, who makes no complaints that other 
states treat with the kings of France, although 
the kings of France retain the title of Navarre. 
But besides, that the examples are liot apposite, 


25o HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

because no other powers acknowledge in form 
the king of England to be king of France, nor 
the king of France to be king of Navarre; with 
what face could the French excuse this mea¬ 
sure? Could they excuse it by urging that 
they adhered to the strict letter of one article 
of the treaty of Ryswic, against the plain mean¬ 
ing of that very article, and against the whole 
tenor of that treaty; in the same breath with 
which they justified the acceptation of the will, 
by pretending they adhered to the supposed 
spirit and general intention of the treaties of 
partition, in contradiction to the letter, to the 
specific engagements, and to the whole purport 
of those treaties? This part of the conduct of 
Lewis the fourteenth may appear justly the 
more surprising, because in most other parts of 
his conduct at the same time, and in some to 
his disadvantage, he acted cautiously, endea¬ 
voured to calm the minds of his neighbours, to 
reconcile Europe to his grandson’s elevation, and 
to avoid all show of beginning hostilities. 

Though king William was determined to en¬ 
gage in a war with France and Spain, yet the 
same good policy that determined him to en¬ 
gage, determined him not to engage too deeply. 
The engagement taken in the grand alliance of 
one thousand seven hundred and one is, “To 
procure an equitable and reasonable satisfaction 
to his imperial majesty for his pretension to the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. ; a5l 

Spanish succession; and sufficient security to 
the king of England, and the States General, for 
tlieir dominions, and for tire navigation and 
commerce of tlieir subjects, and to prevent the 
union of the two monarchies of France and 
Spain. 51 As king of England, as stateholder of 
Holland, he neither could nor did engage any 
further. It may be disputed perhaps among 
speculative politicians, whether the balance of 
power in Europe would have been better pre¬ 
served by that scheme of partition, which the 
treaties, and particularly the last of them, pro¬ 
posed, or by that which the grand alliance pro¬ 
posed to be the object of the war? I think there 
is little room for such a dispute, as I shall have 
occasion to say hereafter more expressly. In 
this place I shall only say, that the object of 
this war, which king William meditated and 
queen Anne waged, was a partition, by which 
a prince of the house of Bourbon, already 
acknowledged by us and the Dutch as king of 
Spain, was to be left on the throne of that dis¬ 
membered monarchy. The wisdom of those 
councils saw that the peace of Europe might 
be restored and secured on this foot, and that 
the liberties of Europe would be in no danger. 

The scales of the balance of power will never 
be exactly poized, nor in the precise point of 
equality either discernible or necessary to be 
discerned. It is sufficient in this, as in oilier 


252 


HISTOHY or EUROPE. 


human affairs, that the deviation be not too 
great: some there will always be. A constant 
attention to these deviations is therefore neces¬ 
sary. When they are litlle, their increase may 
be easily prevented by early care and the pre¬ 
cautions that good policy suggests; but when 
they become great, for want of this care and 
these precautions, or by the force of unforeseen 
events, more vigour is to be exerted and greater 
efforts to be made. But even in such cases, 
much reflection is necessary on all the circum¬ 
stances that form the conjuncture; lest, by attack¬ 
ing with ill success, the deviation be confirmed, 
and the power that is deemed already exorbitant 
become more so; and lest, by attacking with 
good success, whilst one scale is pillaged, too 
much weight of power be thrown into the other. 
In such cases, he who has considered, in the his¬ 
tories of former ages, the strange revolutions that 
time produces, and the perpetual flux and reflux 
of public as well as private fortunes, of kingdoms 
and states, as well as of those who govern or are 
governed in them, will incline to think, that if 
the scales can he brought hack by a war, nearly, 
though not exactly, to the point they were at 
before this great deviation from it, the rest may 
be left to accidents, and to the use that good 
policy is able to make of them. 

When Charles the fifth was at the height of 
his power and in the zenith of his glory, when 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


255 


a king of France and a pope were at once liis 
prisoners; it must be allowed, that, bis situation, 
and that of bis neighbours compared, they had 
as much at least to fear from him and from the 
house of Austria, as the neigh bours of Lewis the 
fourteenth had to fear from him and from the 
house of Bourbon, when, after all his other suc¬ 
cess, one of his grandchildren was placed on the 
Spanish throne. And yet among all the con¬ 
ditions of the several leagues against Charles the 
fifth, I do not remember that it was ever stipu¬ 
lated, that a no peace should be made with him 
as long as he continued to be emperor and king 
of Spain ; nor as long as any Austrian prince 
continued capable of uniting on liis head the 
Imperial and Spanish crowns.” 

If your lordship makes the application, you 
will find that the difference of some circum¬ 
stances does not hinder this example from being 
very apposite and strong to the present purpose. 
Charles the fifth was emperor and king of Spain; 
but neither was Lewis the fourteenth king of 
Spain, nor Philip the fifth king of France. That 
had happened in one instance, which it was ap¬ 
prehended might happen in the other. It had 
happened, and it was reasonably to be appre¬ 
hended that it might happen again; and that the 
Imperial and Spanish crowns might continue, 
not only in the same family, but on the same 
heads; for measures were taken to secure the 


254 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


succession of both to Philip the son ol Charles. 
We do not lind, however, that any confederacy 
was formed, any engagement taken, or any war 
made, to remove or prevent this great evil. Ihe 
princes and states of Europe contented themselves 
to oppose the designs of Charles the fifth, and to 
check the growth of his power occasionally, and 
as interest invited or necessity forced them to 
do; not constantly. They did, perhaps, too little 
against him, and sometimes too much for him : 
hut if they did too little of one kind, time and 
accident did the rest. Distinct dominions and 
different pretensions created contrary interests 
in the house of Austria ; and on the abdication 
of Charles the fifth, his brother succeeded, not 
his son, to the empire. The house of Austria 
divided into a German and a Spanish branch; 
and if the two branches came to have a mutual 
influence on one another, and frequently a 
common interest, it was not till one of them 
had fallen from grandeur, and till the other was 
rather aiming at it, than in possession of it. In 
short, Philip was excluded from the imperial 
throne by so natural a progression of causes and 
effects, arising not only in Germany but in his 
own family, that, if a treaty had been made to 
exclude him from it in favor of Ferdinand, 
such a treaty might have been said very probably 
to have executed itself. 

The precaution I have mentioned, and that 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 255 

was neglected in this case without any detriment 
to the common cause of Europe, was not ne¬ 
glected in the grand alliance of one thousand 
seven hundred and one : for in that, one of the 
ends proposed by the war, is to obtain an effec¬ 
tual security against the contingent union of the 
crowns of France and Spain. The will of Charles 
the second provides against the same contingency: 
and this great principle of preventing too much 
dominion and power from falling to the lot of 
either of the families of Bourbon or Austria, 
seemed to be agreed on all sides; since in the 
partition-treaty ,the same precaution was taken 
against an union of the Imperial and Spanish 
crowns. King William was enough piqued 
against France : his ancient prejudices were 
strong and well founded ; he had been worsted 
in war, over-reached in negociation, and per¬ 
sonally affronted by her. England and Holland 
were sufficiently alarmed and animated, and a 
party was not wanting, even in our island, ready 
to approve any engagements he would have taken 
against France and Spain, and in favor of the 
house of Austria; though we were less concerned 
by any national interest, than any power that 
took part in the war either then or afterwards. 
But this prince was far from taking a part beyond 
that which the particular interests of England and 
Holland, and the general interest of Europe, ne¬ 
cessarily required. Pique must have no more a 


256 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


place than affection, in deliberations of this kind. 
To have engaged to dethrone Philip, out of 
resentment to Lewis the fourteenth, would have 
been a resolution worthy of Charles the twelfth, 
king of Sweden, who sacrificed his country, his 
people, and himself at last, to his revenge : to 
have engaged to conquer the Spanish monarchy 
for the house of Austria, or to go, in favor of 
that family, one step beyond those that were 
necessary to keep this house on a foot of rivalry 
with the oilier, would have been, as I have 
hinted, to act the part of a vassal, not of an ally. 
The former pawns his state, and ruins his sub¬ 
jects, for the interest of his superior lord, perhaps 
for his lord’s humour or his passion ; the latter 
goes no further than his own interest carries 
him; nor makes war for those of another, nor 
even for his own, if they are remote and contin¬ 
gent, as if he fought pro aris etfocis , for liis reli¬ 
gion, his liberty, and his property. Agreeably 
to these principles of good policy, we entered 
into the war that began on the death of Charles 
the second: but we soon departed from them., as 
I shall have occasion to observe in considering 
the state of things, at this remarkable juncture, 
in a view of strength. 

Let me recal here what I have said some where 
else : they who are in the sinking scale of the 
balance of power do not easily, nor soon, come 
off from the habitual prejudices of superiority 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. qS? 

/ 

over their neighbours, nor from the confidence 
that such prejudices inspire. From the year one 
thousand six hundred and sixty-seven, to the end 
of that century, France had been constantly in 
arms, and her arms had been successful: she had 
sustained a war without any confederates, against 
the principal powers of Europe confederated 
against her, and had finished it with advantage 
on every side, just before the death of the king of 
Spain : she continued armed after the peace, by 
sea and land : she increased her forces, while 
other nations reduced their’s, and was ready to 
defend or to invade her neighbours, whilst, their 
confederacy being dissolved, they were in no con¬ 
dition to invade her, and in a bad one to defend 
themselves. Spain and France had now one com¬ 
mon cause: the electors of Bavaria and Cologne 
supported it in Germany, the duke of Savoy was 
an ally, the duke of Mantua a vassal of the two 
crowns in Italy. In a word, appearances were 
formidable on that side; and if a distrust of 
strength, on the side of the confederacy, had in¬ 
duced England and Holland to compound with 
France for a partition of the Spanish succession, 
there seemed to be still greater reason for this 
distrust after the acceptation of the will, the 
peaceable and ready submission of the entire mo¬ 
narchy of Spain io Philip, and all the measures 
taken to secure him in this possession. Such ap¬ 
pearances might well impose : they did so on 

s 



253 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


many; and on none more than on the French 
themselves, who engaged with great confidence 
and spirit in the war, when they found it, as 
they might well expect it would be, unavoidable. 
The strength of France, however, though great, 
was not so great as the French thought it, nor 
equal to the efforts they undertook to make. 
Their engagement, to maintain the Spanish mo¬ 
narchy entire under the dominion of Philip, ex¬ 
ceeded their strength: our engagement, to pro¬ 
cure some outskirts of it for the house of Austria, 
was not in the same disproportion to our strength. 
If 1 Speak positively on this occasion, yet I cannot 
be accused of presumption ; because, how dispu¬ 
table soever these points might be when they were 
points of political speculation, they are such no 
longer, and the judgment I make is dictated to me 
by experience. France threw herself into the 
sinking scale, when she accepted the will: her 
scale continued to sink during the whole course 
of the war, and might have been kept by the peace 
as low as the true interest of Europe required. 
What I remember to have heard the duke of 
Marlborough say, before he went to take on him 
the command of the army in the Low Countries 
in one thousand seven hundred and two, proved 
true. The Frenchmisreekoned very much,iflliey 
made the same comparison between their troops 
and those of their enemies, as they had made in 
precedent wars. Those that had been opposed to 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 269 

them in tlie last, were raw for the most part when 
it began, the British particularly • but they had 
been disciplined, if I may say so, by their defeats* 
They were grown to be veteran at the peace of 
Ryswic; and though many had been disbanded, 

1 

yet they had been disbanded lately : so that even 
these were easily formed anew, and the spirit 
that had been raised continued in all. Supplies 
of men to recruit the armies were more abundant 
on the side of the confederacy, than on that of 
the two crowns: a necessary consequence of which 
it seemed to be, that those of the former would 
grow better, and those of the latter worse, in a 
long, extensive, and bloody war. I believe it 
proved so; and if my memory does not deceive 
me, the French were forced very early to send 
recruits to their armies as they send slaves to 
their gallies. A comparison between those who 
were to direct their councils, and to conduct the 
armies on both sides, is a task it would become 
me little to undertake : the event showed, that 
ifF ranee had had her Conde, herTurenne, or her 
Luxemburg, to oppose to the confederates—the 
confederates might have opposed to her, with 
equal confidence, their Eugene of Savoy, their 
Marlborough, or their Slarenberg. 

But there is one observation I cannot forbear 
to make. The alliances were concluded, the 
quotas were settled, and the season for taking the 
field approached, when king William died. The 


1 


sGo HISTOTtY OF EUROPE. 

event could not fail to occasion some consterna¬ 
tion on one side, and lo give some hopes on the 
oilier : for, notwithstanding the ill success with 
which he made war generally, he was looked 
upon as ihe sole centre of union that could keep 
together the great confederacy then forming; 
and how much the French feared from his life 
had appeared, a few years before, in the extra¬ 
vagant and indecent joy they expressed on a false 
report of his death. A short time showed how 
vain the fears of some and the hopes of others 
were. By his death, the duke of Marlborough 
was raised to the head of the army, and indeed of 
the confederacy: where he, a new, a private man, 
a subject, acquired by merit and by management 
a more deciding influence, than high birth, con¬ 
firmed authority, and even the crown of Great 
Britain, had given to king William. Not only all 
the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, 
were kept more compact and entire, but a more 
rapid and vigorous motion was given to the 
whole; and, instead of languishing out disastrous 
campaigns, we saw every scene of the war full 
of action. All those wherein he appeared, and 
many of those wherein he was not then an actor, 
but abettor however of their action, were crowned 
with the most triumphant success. I take with 
pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to that 
great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I 
admired; and whose memory, as the greatest 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 


261 


general and as llie greatest minister that onu 
country or perhaps any other has produced, I 
honor. But besides this, the observation I have 
made comes into my subject, since it serves to 
point out to your lordship the proof of what I 
said above, that France undertook too much, 
when she undertook to maintain the Spanish mo¬ 
narchy entire in the possession of Philip ; and 
that we undertook no more than what was pro¬ 
portionable to our strength, when we undertook 
to weaken that monarchy by dismembering it, in 
the hands of a prince of the house of Bourbon, 
which we had been disabled by ill fortune and 
worse conduct to keep out of them. It may be said 
that the great success of the confederates against 
France proves that their generals were superior 
to hers, but not that their forces and their na¬ 
tional strength were so; that with the same force 
with which she was beaten, she might have been 
victorious ; that if she had been so, or if the suc¬ 
cess of the war had varied, or been less decisive 
against her in Germany, in the Low Countries, 
and in Italy, as it was in Spain, her strength 
would have appeared sufficient, and that of the 
confederacy insufficient. Many things may be 
urged to destroy this reasoning: I content myself 
with one. France could not long have made 
even the unsuccessful efforts she did make, if 
England and Holland had done what it is unde¬ 
niable they had strength to do; if besides piling- 


2 , 6-2 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

ing, I do not say conquering, the Spanish West 
Indies, they had hindered the French from going 
to the South Sea; as they did annually during the 
whole course of the war, without the least moles¬ 
tation, and from whence they imported into 
France in that time as much silver and gold as 
the whole species of that kingdom amounted to. 
With this immense and constant supply of wealth, 
France was reduced in effect to bankruptcy be¬ 
fore the end of the war : how much sooner must 
she have been so, if this supply had been kept 
from her ? The confession of France herself is 
on my side. She confessed her inability to sup¬ 
port what she had undertaken, when she sued 
for peace as early as the year one thousand seven 
hundred and six. She made her utmost efforts to 
answer the expectation of the Spaniards, and to 
keep their monarchy entire. When experience 
had made it evident that this was beyond her 
power, she thought herself justified to the Spanish 
nation, in consenting to a partition, and was ready 
to conclude a peace with the allies on the principles 
of their grand alliance. But as France seemed 
to flatter herself, till experience made her de¬ 
sirous to abandon an enterprise that exceeded her 
strength, you will find, my lord, that her ene¬ 
mies began to flatter themselves in their turn, 
and to form designs and take engagements that ex¬ 
ceeded theirs. Great Britain was drawn into these 
engagements little by little; fori do not remember 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 263 

any parliamentary declaration for continuing llio 
war till Philip should he dethroned, before the 
year one thousand seven hundred and six; and 
then such a declaration was judged necessary to 
second the resolution of our ministers and our 
allies, in departing from the principles of the 
grand alliance,, and in proposing not only the re¬ 
duction of the French, but the conquest of the 
Spanish monarchy, as the objects of the war. 
This new plan had taken place, and we had begun 
to act upon it two years before, when the treaty 
with Portugal was concluded, and the archduke 
Charles , now emperor, was sent into Portugal 
first, and into Catalonia afterwards, and was ac * 
knowledged and supported as king of Spain. 

When your lordship peruses the anecdotes of 
the times here spoken of, and considers the course 
and event of the great war which broke out on 
the death of the king of Spain, Charles the second, 
and was ended by the treaties of Utrecht and Rad- 
slat; you will find, that in order to form a true 
judgment on the whole, you must consider very 
attentively the great change made by the new 
plan that I have mentioned; and compare it with 
the plan of the grand alliance, relatively to the 
general interest of Europe, and the particular in¬ 
terest of your own country. It will not, because 
it cannot, be denied, that all the ends of the grand 
alliance might have been obtained by a peace in 
one thousand seven hundred and six. I need not 


HISTORY OF EUR OFF. 


204 

recal the events of that and of the precedent 
years of the war. Not only the arms of France 
had been defeated on every side, but the inward 
£tate of that kingdom was already more exhausted 
than it had ever been. She went on indeed, but 
she staggered and reeled under the burden of the 
war. Our condition, I speak of Great Britain, was 
not quite so bad ; but the charge of the war in¬ 
creased annually upon us. It was evident that 
this charge must continue to increase; and it was 
no less evident that our nation was unable to bear 
it, without falling soon into such distress, and 
contracting such debts, as we have seen and felt, 
and still feel. The Dutch neither restrained their 
trade, nor overloaded it with taxes r they soon 
altered the proportion of their quotas, and were 
deficient even after this alteration in them. But, 
however, it must be allowed that they exerted 
their whole strength ; and they and we paid the 
whole charge of the war. Since, therefore, by 
such efforts as could not be continued any longer, 
without oppressing and impoverishing these na¬ 
tions to a degree that no interest,, except that of 
their very being, nor any engagement of assisting 
an alliance toils viribus can require, France was 
reduced, and all the ends of the war were become 
attainable; it will be worth your lordship’s while 
to consider why the true use was not made of the 
success of the confederates against France and 
Spain, and why a peace was not concluded in tire 


II[STORY OF EUROPE. 


265 

fiftli year of llie war. When your lordship con¬ 
siders this, you will compare in your thoughts 
what the state of Europe would have been, and 
that of your own country might have been, if the 
plan of the grand alliance had been pursued ; with 
the possible as well as certain, the contingent as 
well as necessary, consequences of changing this 
plan in the manner it Avas changed. You will be 
of opinion, I think,— and it seems to me, after 
more than twenty years of recollection, re-exa¬ 
mination, and reflection, that impartial posterity 
must be of the same opinion—you will be of opi¬ 
nion, I think, that the war was wise and just be¬ 
fore the change, because necessary to maintain 
that equality among the powers of Europe, on 
which the public peace and common prosperity 
depends ; and that it was unwise and unjust after 
this change, because unnecessary to this end, and 
directed to other and to contrary ends. You will 
be guided by undeniable facts to discover, through 
all the false colors which have been laid and 
which deceived many at the time, that the war, 
after this change, became a Avar of passion, of am¬ 
bition, of avarice, and of private interest; the 
private interest of particular persons and parti¬ 
cular states; to which the general interest of Eu¬ 
rope was sacrificed so entirely, that if the terms 
insisted on by the confederates had been granted, 
nay if even those which France was reduced to 
grant, in one thousand seven hundred and ten, 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


266 

Iiad been accepted, such a new system of power 
would have been created as might have exposed 
tbe balance of this power to deviations, and the 
peace of Europe to troubles, not inferior to those 
that the war was designed, when it began, to pre¬ 
vent. Whilst you observe this in general, you 
will find particular occasion to lament the fate of 
Great Britain in the midst of triumphs that have 
been sounded so high. She had triumphed, in¬ 
deed, to the year one thousand seven hundred and 
six inclusively : but what were her triumphs 
afterwards ? what was her success after she pro¬ 
ceeded on the new plan ? I shall say something 
on that head immediately : here let me only say, 
that the glory of taking towns and winning 
battles is to be measured by the utility that re¬ 
sults from those victories. Victories, that bring 
honor to the arms, may bring shame to the coun¬ 
cils, of a nation : to win a battle, to take a town, 
is the glory of a general and of an army ; of this 
glory we had a very large share in the course of 
the war. But the glory of a nation is to propor¬ 
tion the ends she proposes, to her interest and 
her strength; the means she employs to the ends 
she proposes, and the vigour she exerts to both. 
Of this glory, I apprehend, we have had very 
little to boast, at any time, and particularly in the 
great conjuncture of which I am speaking. The 
reasons of ambition, avarice, and private interest, 
which engaged the princes and states of the con- 


1 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 267 

fede racy to depart from the principles of the grand 
alliance, were no reasons for Great Britain: she 
neither expected nor desired any tiling more, 
than what she might have obtained by adhering 
to those principles. What hurried our nation 
then, with so much spirit and ardour, into those 
of the new plan? your lordship will answer this 
question to yourself, I believe, by the prejudices 
and rashness of party ; by the influence that the 
first successes of the confederate arms gave to our 
ministers; and the popularity they gave, if I may 
say so, to the war; by ancient and fresh resent¬ 
ments, which the unjust and violent usurpations, 
in short the whole conduct of Lewis the four¬ 
teenth, for forty years together, his haughty 
treatment of other princes and stales, and even 
the style of his court, had created; and to men¬ 
tion no more, by a notion groundless but preva¬ 
lent, that he was and would be master as long as 
his grandson was king of Spain; and that there 
could be no effectual measure taken, though the 
grand alliance supposed that there might, to pre¬ 
vent a future union of the two monarchies, as 
long as a prince of the house of Bourbon sat on 
the Spanish throne. That such a nolion should 
have prevailed, in the first confusion of thoughts 
which the death and will of Charles the second 
produced, among the generality of men, who saw 
the fleets and armies of France take possession of 
all ihe parts of the Spanish monarchy, is not to 


263 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


be wondered at by those that consider how ill the 
generality of mankind are informed, how inca¬ 
pable they are of judging, and yet how ready to 
pronounce judgment; in fine, how inconside¬ 
rately they follow one another in any popular opi¬ 
nion which the heads of party broach, or to which 
the first appearances of things have given occa¬ 
sion. But, even at this time, the councils of En¬ 
gland and Holland did not entertain this notion. 
They acted on quite another, as might he shown 
in many instances, if any other besides that of I he 
grand alliance was necessary. When these coun¬ 
cils, therefore, seemed to entertain this notion 
afterwards, and acted and took engagements to act 
upon it, we must conclude that they had other 
motives. They could not have these * for they 
knew, that as the Spaniards had been driven by 
the two treaties of partition to give their monarchy 
to a prince of the house of Bourbon, so they were 
driven into the arms of France by the war that 
we made to force a third upon them. If we acted 
rightly on the principles of the grand alliance, 
they acted rightly on those of the will; and if we 
could not avoid making an offensive war, at the 
expense of forming and maintaining a vast con¬ 
federacy, they could not avoid purchasing the 
protection and assistance of France in a defensive 
war, and especially in the beginning of it, accord¬ 
ing to what I have somewhere observed already, 
by yielding to the authority and admitting the 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 269 

influence of that court in all the affairs of their 
government. Our ministers knew, therefore, that 
if any inference was to be drawn from the first 
part of this nolion, it was for shortening, not 
prolonging, the war; for delivering the Spaniards 
as soon as possible from habits of union and inti¬ 
macy with France; not for continuing them under 
the same necessity, till by length of time these 
habits should be confirmed. As to the latter part 
of this notion, they knew that it was false and 
silly. Garth, the best natured ingenious wild 
man I ever knew, might be in the right when he 
said, in some of his poems at that time, 

“ -An Austrian prince alone 

u Is fit to nod upon a Spanish throne.” 

The setting an Austrian prince upon it was, 
110 doubt, the surest expedient to prevent an 
union of the two monarchies of France and 
Spain; just as setting a prince of the house of 
Bourbon on that throne was the surest expedient 
to prevent an union of the imperial and Spanish 
crowns : but it was equally false to say, in either 
case, that this was the sole expedient. It would 
be no paradox, but a proposition easily proved, 
to advance, that if these unions had been effec¬ 
tually provided against, the general interest of 
Europe would have been little concerned whe¬ 
ther Philip or Charles had nodded at Madrid. 
It would be likewise no parodox to say, that 


27O HISTORY OF EUIIOFF. 

the contingency of uniting France and Spain 
under the same prince appeared more remote, 
about the middle of the last great war, when the 
dethronement of Philip in favor of Charles was 
made a condition of peace sine qua non, than the 
contingency of an union of the Imperial and 
Spanish crowns. Nay, I known not whether it 
would be a paradox to affirm, that the expedient 
that was taken, and that was always obvious to 
betaken, of excluding Philip and his race from 
the succession of France, by creating an interest 
in all the other princes of the blood, and by 
consequence a party in France itself, for their 
exclusion, whenever the case should happen, 
was not in its nature more effectual than any 
that could have been taken; and some must 
have been taken, not only to exclude Charles 
from the empire whenever the case should 
happen that happened soon, the death of his 
brother Joseph without issue male, but his 
posterity likewise in all future vacancies of the 
imperial throne. The expedient that was taken 
against Philip at the treaty of Utrecht, they who 
opposed the peace attempted to ridicule; but 
some of them have had occasion since that time 
to see, though the case has not happened, hoAV 
effectual it would have been, if it had; and 
he, who should go about to ridicule it after our 
experience, would only make himself ridiculous. 
Notwithstanding all this, he who transports 


/ 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 271 

liimself back to that time must acknowledge, 
that the confederated powers in general could 
not but be of Garth’s mind, and think it more 
agreeable to the common interest of Europe, that 
a branch of Austria than a branch of Bourbon 
should gather the Spanish succession, and that 
the maritime powers, as they are called imperti¬ 
nently enough with respect to the superiority 
of Great Britain, might think it was for their 
particular interest to have a prince, dependent 
for some time at least on them, king of Spain, 
rather than a prince whose dependence, as long 
as he stood in an}^, must be naturally on France. 
I do hot say, as some have done, a prince whose 
family was an old ally, rather than a prince 
whose family Avas an old enemy; because I lay 
no Aveight on the gratitude of princes, and am as 
much persuaded that an Austrian king of Spain 
would liaA^e made us returns of that sort in no 
other proportion than of his Avant of us, as I am, 
that Philip arid his race Avill make no other 
returns of the same sort to France. If this affair 
had been entire, therefore, on the death of the 
king of Spain; if we had made no partition, nor 
he any will, the whole monarchy of Spain Avould 
liaA^e been the prize to be fought for; and our 
Avishes, and such efforts as avc Avere able to make; 
in the most unprovided condition imaginable, 
must have been on the side of Austria. But it 
Was far from being entire. A prince of the house 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


272 

of Austria might have been on the spot, before 
the king of Spain died, to gather his succession ; 
but instead of this, a prince of the house of Bour¬ 
bon was there soon afterwards, and took posses¬ 
sion of the whole monarchy, to which lie had 
been called by the late king’s will and by the 
voice of the Spanish nation. The councils oi 
England and Holland, therefore, preferred very 
wisely, by their engagements in the grand al¬ 
liance, what was more pralicable though less 
eligible, to what they deemed more eligible, but 
saw become by the course of events, if not abso¬ 
lutely impracticable, yet an enterprise of more 
length , more difficulty, and greater expense of 
blood and treasure, than these nations were able 
to bear; or than they ought to bear, when their 
security and that of the rest of Europe might be 
sufficiently provided for at a cheaper rate. If 
the confederates could not obtain, by the force 
of their arms, the ends of the war laid down in 
the grand alliance, to what purpose would it be to 
stipulate for more? and if they were able to 
obtain these, it was evident that, whilst they 
dismembered the Spanish monarchy, they must 
reduce the power of France. This happened; 
the Low Countries were conquered; the French 
were driven out of Germany and Italy ; and Lewis 
the fourteenth, who had so long and so lately set 
mankind at defiance, was reduced to sue for peace. 

If it had been granted him in one thousand 


/ 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 27$ 

seven hundred and six, on wliat foot must it 
have been granted? The allies had already in 
their power all the states that were to compose 
the reasonable satisfaction for the emperor:—I 
say, in their power; because though Naples and 
Sicily were not actually reduced at that time, 
yet, the expulsion of the French out of Italy, 
and the disposition of the people of those 
kingdoms, considered, it was plain the allies 
might reduce them when they pleased. The 
confederate arms were superior, till then, in 
Spain; and several provinces acknowledged 
Charles the third: if the rest had been yielded 
to him by treaty, all that the new plan required 
had been obtained. If the French would not 
yet have abandoned Philip, as we had found 
that th$ Castilians would not even when our 
army was at Madrid, all that the old plan, the 
plan of the grand alliance required, had been 
obtained : but still France and Spain had given 
nothing to purchase a peace, and they were in 
circumstances not to expect it without pur¬ 
chasing it. They would have purchased it, my 
lord; and France as well as Spain would have 
contributed a larger share of the price, rather 
than continue the war in her exhausted state. 
Such a treaty of peace would have been a third 
treaty of partition, indeed, but vastly preferable 
to the two former. The great objection to the 
former was drawn from that considerable in- 


T 




27-4 HISTORY OF EUROPE* 

crease of dominion, which the crown of France, 
and not a branch of the house of Bourbon, 
acquired by them. I know what may be said 
speciously enough to persuade, that such an in¬ 
crease of dominion would not have augmented, 
but would rather have weakened the power of 
Fi ’ance, and what examples may be drawn from 
history to countenance such an opinion : I know, 
likewise, that the compact figure of France, and 
the contiguity of all her provinces, make a very 
essential part of the force of her monarchy. Had 
the designs of Charles the eighth, Lewis the 
twelfth, Francis the first, and Henry the second, 
succeeded, the dominions of France would have 
been more extensive, and I believe the strength 
of her monarchy would have been less. I have 
sometimes thought that even the loss of the 
battle of St. Quentin, which obliged Henry the 
second to recal the duke of Guise with his army 
out of Italy, was in this respect no unhappy 
event. But the reasoning which is good, I think, 
when applied to those times, will not hold when 
applied to ours, and to the case I consider here- 
the state of France, the state of her neighbours, 
and the whole constitution of Europe, being so 
extremely different: the objection, therefore, to 
the two treaties of partition, had a real weight 
The power of France, deemed already exorbitant, 
would have been increased by this accession of 
dominion in the hands of Lewis the fourteenth: 


HISTORY OF EUROPE, 2^5 

and tlie use lie intended to make of it, by keeping 
Italy and Spain in awe, appears in the article 
that gave him the ports on the Tuscan coasts, 
and the province of Guipuscoa. This king 
W illiam might, and, I question not, did see; 
but that prince might think too, that, for this 
very reason, Lewis the fourteenth would adhere 
in all events to the treaty of partition; and 
that these consequences were more remote, and 
would be less dangerous, than those of making 
no partition at all. The partition, even the 
worst that might have been made, by a treaty 
of peace in one thousand seven hundred and 
six, would have been the very reverse of this. 
France would have been weakened, and her 
enemies strengthened, by her concessions on 
the side of the Low Countries," of Germany 
and Savoy : if a prince of her royal family had 
remained in possession of Spain and the West 
Indies, no advantage would have accrued to 
her bv it, and effectual bars would have been 
opposed to an union of the two monarchies; 
the house of Austria would have had a rea¬ 
sonable satisfaction for that shadow of right, 
which a former partition gave her: she had no 
other after the will of Charles the second; and 
this may be justly termed a shadow, since En¬ 
gland, Holland, and France could confer no real 
right to the Spanish succession, nor to any part 
of it She had declined acceding to that par- 

T 2 


27 6 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

tiiion before France departed from it, and would 
liave preferred the Italian provinces without 
Spain and the West-Indies, to Spain and the 
[West-Indies without the Italian provinces: the 
Italian provinces would have fallen to her share 
by this partition; the particular demands of 
England and Holland would have suffered no 
difficulty, and those that we were obliged by 
treaty to make for others would have been easy 
to adjust. Would not this have been enough, 
my lord, for the public security, for the common 
interest, and for the glory of our arms?—to have 
humbled and reduced, in five campaigns, a power 
that had disturbed and insulted Europe almost 
forty years; to have restored, in so short a time, 
the balance of power in Europe to a sufficient 
point of equality, after it had been more than 
fifty years, that is from the treaty of Westphalia, 
in a gradual deviation from this point; in short, 
to have retrieved, in one thousand seven hundred 
and six, a game that was become desperate at the 
beginning of the century:—to have done all this 
before the war had exhausted our strength, was 
the utmost, sure, that any man could desire, 
who intended the public good alone; and no 
honest reason ever was nor ever will be given, 
why the war was protracted any longer; why we 
neither made peace, after a short, vigorous, and 
successful war, nor put it entirely out of the 
power of France to continue at any rate a long 


HISTORY OF EURO RE. £77 

I 

one. I have said, and it is true, that this had 
been entirely out of her power, if we had given 
greater interruption to the commerce of Old and 
New Spain, and if we had hindered France from 
importing annually, from the year one thousand 
seven hundred and two, such immense treasures 
as she did import by the ships she sent with the 
permission of Spain to the South Sea. It has 
been advanced, and it is a common opinion, that 
we were restrained by the jealousy of the Dutch 
from making use of the liberty given by treaty 
to them and us, and which, without his imperial 
majesty’s leave, since we entered into the war, 
we might have taken, of making conquests in 
the Spanish West-Indies. Be it so: but to go 
to the South Seas to trade there if we could;—to 
pillage the West-Indies without making con¬ 
quests if we could not; and whether we traded 
or whether we pillaged, to hinder the French 
from trading there—was a measure that would 
have given, one ought to think, no jealousy to 
the Dutch, who might, and it is to be supposed 
would, have taken their part in these expedi¬ 
tions ; or if it had given them jealousy, what could 
they have replied, when a British minister had 
told them, “ that it little became them to find 
fault that we traded with or pillaged the Spaniards 
in the West-Indies to the detriment of our com¬ 
mon enemy, whilst we connived at them who 
traded with this enemy to his and their great 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


advantage, against our remonstrances, and in 
violation of the condition upon which we had 
given the first augmentation of our forces in 
the Low Countries ? n We might have pursued 
this measure, notwithstanding any engagement 
that we took by the treaty with Portugal, if I 
remember that treaty right; hut instead of this, 
we wasted our forces, and squandered millions 
after millions in supporting our alliance with 
this crown, and in pursuing the chimerical pro¬ 
ject which was made the object of this alliance: 
I call it chimerical, because it was equally so, to 
expect a revolution in favor of Charles the third 
on the slender authority of such a triller as the 
admiral of Castile; and, when this failed us, to 
hope to conquer Spain by the assistance of the 
Portuguese and the revolt of the Catalans: yet 
this was the foundation upon which the new 
plan of the war was built, and so many ruinous 
engagements were taken. 

The particular motives of private men, as 
well as of princes and states, to protract the 
war, are partly known and partly guessed at 
this time: but whenever that time comes, and 
I am persuaded it will come, when their secret 
motives, their secret designs and intrigues, can 
be laid open, I presume to say to your lordship 
that the most confused scene of iniquity and 
folly that it is possible to imagine, will appear. 
In the mean while, if your lordship considers 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


2 79 

only the treaty of barrier, as my lord Towns- 
hend signed it, without, nay in truth, against 
orders; for the duke of Marlborough, though 
joint plenipotentiary, did not: if you consider 
the famous preliminaries of one thousand seven 
hundred and nine, which we made a mock show 
of ratifying, though we knew that they would 
not be accepted; for so the marquis of Torcy 
had told the pensionary before he left the Hague, 
as the said marquis has assured me very often 
since that time: if you inquire into the anec¬ 
dotes of Gertruydenburg, and if you consult 
other authentic papers that are extant, your 
lordship will see the policy of the new plan, I 
think, in this light. Though we had refused, 
before the war began, to enter into engagements 
for the conquest of Spain, yet as soon as it be¬ 
gan, when the reason of things was still the 
same, for the success of our first campaign 
cannot be said to have altered it, we entered 
into these very engagements. By the treaty 
wherein we took these engagements first, Por¬ 
tugal was brought into the grand alliance; that 
is, she consented to employ her formidable 
forces against Philip, at the expense of England 
and Holland; provided we would debar ourselves 
from making any acquisitions, and the house of 
Austria promise, that she should acquire many 
important places in Spain and an immense ex¬ 
tent of country in America. By such bargains 


* 28 o 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


as this, the whole confederacy was formed and 
held together: such means were, indeed, effec¬ 
tual to multiply enemies to France and Spain; 
but a project so extensive and so difficult as to 
make many bargains of this kind necessary, and 
necessary for a great number of years, and for 
a very uncertain event, was a project into which, 
for this very reason, England and Holland should 
not have entered. It is worthy your observa¬ 
tion, my lord, that these bad bargains would not 
have been continued, as they were almost to our 
immediate ruin, if the war had not been pro¬ 
tracted under the pretended necessity of re¬ 
ducing the whole Spanish monarchy to the 
obedience of the house of Austria. Now, as no 
other confederate except Portugal was to receive 
his recompense by any dismemberment of domi¬ 
nions in Old or New Spain, the engagements 
we took to conquer this whole monarchy had 
no visible necessary cause, but the procuring 
the accession of this power, that was already 
neuter, to the grand alliance. This accession, 
as I have said before, served only to make us 
neglect immediate and certain advantages for 
remote and uncertain hopes, and choose to 
attempt the conquest of the Spanish nation at 
our own vast expense, whom we might have 
starved, and, by starving, reduced both the 
French and them at their expense. 

I oalled the necessity of reducing the wholes 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 2 % l 

Spanish monarchy to the obedience of the house 
of Austria, a pretended necessity; a.ud pretended 
it was; not real , without doubt: but I am apt 
to think your lordship may go further, and find 
some reasons to suspect, that the opinion itself 
of this necessity was not very real in the minds 
ol those who urged it; in the minds, I would 
say, of the able men among them; for that it 
was real in some of our zealous British poli¬ 
ticians, I do them the justice to believe. Your 
lordship may find reasons to suspect, perhaps, 
that this opinion was set up rather to occasion a 
diversion of the forces of France, and to furnish 
pretences for prolonging the war for other ends. 

Before the year one thousand seven hundred 
and ten, the war was kept alive with alternate 
success in Spain; and it may be said, therefore, 
that the design of conquering this kingdom con¬ 
tinued, as well as the hopes of succeeding. But 
why, then, did the States General refuse, in one 
thousand seven hundred and nine, to admit an 
article in the barrier-treaty, by which they would 
have obliged themselves to procure the whole 
Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria, 
when that zealous politician, my lord Townshend, 
pressed them to it? If their opinion of the ne¬ 
cessity of carrying on the war till this point 
could be obtained was real, why did they risk 
the immense advantages given them with so 
much profuse generosity by this treaty, rather 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


jLij’l 

than consent to an engagement that was so con¬ 
formable to their opinion? 

After the year one thousand seven hundred 
and ten, it will not be said, I presume, that 
the war could be supported in Spain Avith any 
prospect of advantage on our side. We had 
sufficiently experienced how little dependance 
could be had on the vigour of the Portuguese; 
and how firmly the Spanish nation in general, 
the Castilians in particular, were attached to 
Philip. Our armies had been twice at Madrid; 
this prince had been twice driven from the 
capital; his rival had been there; none stirred 
in favor of the victorious, all wished and acted 
for the vanquished: in short, the falshood of 
all those lures, by which we had been enticed 
to make war in Spain, had appeared sufficiently 
in one thousand seven hundred and six; but was 
so grosly evident in one thousand seven hundred 
and ten, that Mr. Craggs, who was sent towards 
the end of that year by Mr. Stanhope into En¬ 
gland on commissions which he executed with 
much good sense and much address, owned to 
me, that, in Mr. Stanhope’s opinion, and he was 
not apt to despond of success, especially in the 
execution of his own projects, nothing couldffie 
done more in Spain, the general attachment of 
the people to Philip and their aversion to Charles 
considered; that armies of twenty or thirty thou¬ 
sand men might walk about that country till 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 285 

doomsday, so he expressed himself, without 
effect; that wherever they came, the people 
would submit to Charles the third out of terror, 
and, as soon as they were gone, proclaim Philip 
the fifth again out of affection; that to conquer 
Spain required a great army, and, to keep it, 
a greater. 

Was it possible, after this, to think in good 
earnest of conquering Spain, and could they be 
in good earnest who continued to hold the same 
language and to insist on the same measures? 
Could they be so in the following year, when 
the emperor Joseph died? Charles was become 
then the sole surviving male of the house of 
Austria, and succeeded to the empire as well 
as to all the hereditary dominions of that family: 
could they be in earnest who maintained, even 
in this conjuncture, that u no peace could be safe, 
honorable, or lasting, so long as the kingdom of 
Spain and the West-Indies remained in the pos¬ 
session of any branch of the house of Bourbon?” 
Did they mean that Charles should be emperor 
and king of Spain? — in this project they would 
have had the allies against them. Did they mean 
to call the duke of Savoy to the crown of Spain, 
or to bestow it on some other prince? — in this 
project they would have had his Imperial majesty 
against them. In either case, the confederacy 
would have been broken; and how, then, would 
they have continued the war? Did they mean 




HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


&84 

nothing, or did they mean something more than 
they owned* something more than to reduce the 
exorbitant power of France, and to force the 
whole Spanish monarchy out of the house of 
Bourbon? 

Both these ends might have been obtained at 
Gertruydenberg. Why were they not obtained? 
Read the preliminaries of one thousand seven 
hundred and nine, which were made the founda¬ 
tion of this treaty. Inform yourself of what pas¬ 
sed there, and observe what followed. Your 
lordship will remain astonished. I remain so 
every time I reflect upon them, though I saw 
these things at no very great distance, even 
whilst they were in transaction; and though I 
know most certainly, that France lost, two years 
before, by the little skill and address of her prin¬ 
cipal * minister, in answering overtures made 
during the siege of Lisle by a principal person 
among the allies, such an opportunity, and such 
a correspondence, as would have removed some 
of the obstacles that lay now in her way, have 
prevented others, and have procured her peace. 
An equivalent for the thirty-seventh article of the 
preliminaries, that is, for the cession of Spain and 
the West-Indies, was the point to be discussed at 
Gertruydenberg. Naples and Sicily, or even Na¬ 
ples and Sardinia would have contented the 
French, at least they would have accepted them 

* Chamillard. 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


285 * 

as the equivalent. Buys and Yanderdussen, who 
treated with them, reported this to the ministers 
of tlie allies; and it was upon this occasion that 
the duke of Marlborough, as Buys himself told 
me, took immediately the lead, and congratulated 
the assembly on the near approach of a peace ; 
said, that since the French were in this disposition, 
it was time to consider what further demands 
should be made upon them, according to the 
liberty observed in the preliminaries; and ex¬ 
horted all the ministers of the allies to adjust 
their several ulterior pretensions, and to prepare 
their demands. 

This proceeding, and what followed, put me in 
mind of that of the Romans with the Carthagi¬ 
nians. The former were resolved to consent to 
no peace till Carthage was laid in ruins. They 
set a treaty however on foot, at the request of 
their old enemy, imposed some terms, and refer¬ 
red them to their generals for the rest. Their 
generals pursued the same method, and, by re¬ 
serving still a right of making ulterior demands, 
they reduced the Carthaginians at last to the ne¬ 
cessity of abandoning their city, or of continuing 
the war after they had given up their arms, their 
machines, and their fleet, in hopes of peace. 

France saw the snare, and resolved to run any 
risk rather than to be caught in it. We con¬ 
tinued to demand, under pretence of securing the 
cession of Spain and the West-Indies, that Lewis 




5286 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

the fourteenth should take on him to dethrone 
his grandson in the space of two months; and if 
he did not effect it in that time, that we should 
he at liberty to renew the war without restoring 
the places that were to be put into our hands 
according to the preliminaries; which were the 
most important places France possessed on the 
side of the Low Countries. Lewis offered to 
abandon his grandson ; and, if he could not pre¬ 
vail on him to resign, to furnish money to the 
allies, who might at the expense of France, force 
him to evacuate Spain. The proposition made 
by the allies had an air of inhumanity, and the 
rest of mankind might be shocked to see the grand¬ 
father obliged to make war on his grandson ; but 
Lewis the fourteenth had treated mankind with 
too much inhumanity in his prosperous days, to 
have any reason to complain even of this propo¬ 
sition; his people, indeed, who are apt to have 
great partiality for their kings, might pity his 
distress; this happened, and he found his account 
in it, Philip must have evacuated Spain, I think, 
notwithstanding his own obstinacy, the spirit of 
his queen, and the resolute attachment of the 
Spaniards, if his grandfather had insisted and 
been in earnest to force him : but if this expe¬ 
dient was, as it was, odious, why did we prefer to 
continue the war against France and Spain, rather 
than accept the other?—why did we neglect the 
opportunity of reducing, effectually and iinme- 


I 


HISTORY OF FURORE. 287 

diately, the exorbitant power of France, and of 
rendering the conquest of Spain practicable? both 
which might have been brought about, and con¬ 
sequently the avowed ends of the war might have*, 
been answered by accepting the expedient that 
France offered. u France” it was said, “ was not 
“ sincere : she meant nothing more than to amuse 
u and divide.” This reason was given at the time; 
but some of those who gave it then, I have seen 
ashamed to insist on it since. France was not in a 
condition to act the part she had acted in former 
treaties; and her distress was no bad pledge of her 
sincerity on this occasion: but there was a better 
still5—the strong places that she must have put 
into the hands of the allies would have exposed 
her, on the least breach of faith, to see, not her 
frontier alone, but even the provinces that lie 
behind it desolated* and prince Eugene might 
have had the satisfaction, it is said I know not how 
truly, he desired, of marching with the torch in 
his hand to Versailles. 

Your lordship will observe that the confe¬ 
rences at Gertruydenberg ending in the manner 
they did, the inflexibility of the allies gave new 
life and spirit to the French and Spanish nations, 
distressed and exhausted as they were. The troops 
of the former withdrawn out of Spain, and the 
Spaniards left to defend themselves as they could, 
the Spaniards alone obliged us to retreat from 
Madrid, and defeated us in our retreat. But your 


288 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

lordship may think perhaps, as I do, that if Lewis 
the fourteenth had bound himself by a solemn 
treaty to abandon his grandson, had paid a sub¬ 
sidy to dethrone him, and had consented to ac¬ 
knowledge another king of Spain, the Spaniards 
would not have exerted the same zeal for Philip; 
the actions of Almenara and Saragossa might have 
been decisive, and those of Brihuegha and Villa 
Viciosa would not have happened. After all these 
events, how could any reasonable man expect 
that a war should be supported with advantage in 
Spain, to which the court of Vienna had contri¬ 
buted nothing from the first, scarce bread to their 
archduke; which Portugal waged faintly, and 
•with deficient quotas; and which the Dutch had 
in a manner renounced, by neglecting to recruit 
their forces ? How was Charles to be placed on 
the Spanish throne, or Philip at least to be driven 
out of it? by the success of the confederate arms 
in other parts. But what success sufficient to this 
purpose, could we expect? This question may be 
answered best, by showing what success we had. 

Portugal and Savoy did nothing before the 
death of the emperor Joseph ; and declared in 
form, as soon as he was dead, that they would 
carry on the w r ar no longer to set the crown of 
Spain on the head of Charles, since this would 
be to fight against the very principle they had 
fought for. The Rhine was a scene of inaction. 
The sole efforts, that were to bring about the 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 289 

great event o.f dethroning Philip, were those which 
the duke of Marlborough was able to make, He 
took three towns in one thousand seven hundred 
and ten, Aire, Bethune, and St.Tenant; and one, 
Bouchain, in one thousand seven hundred and 
eleven. Now this conquest being in fact the only 
one the confederates made that year, Bouchain 
may be said properly and truly to have cost our 
nation very near seven millions sterling; for your 
lordship will find, I believe, that the charge of 
the war for that year amounted to no less. It is 
true that the duke of Marlborough had proposed 
a very great project, by which incursions would 
have been made during the winter into France ; 
the next campaign might have been opened early 
on our side, and several other great and obvious 
advantages might have been obtained; but the 
Dutch refused to contribute even less than their 
proportion, (for the queen had offered to take the 
deficiency on herself,) to the expense of barracks 
and forage, and disappointed by llieir obstinacy 
the whole design. 

We were then amused with visionary schemes 
of marching our whole army, in a year or two 
more, and after a town or two more were taken, 
directly to Paris, or at least into the heart of 
France. But was this so easy or so sure a game? 
The French expected we would play it : their 
generals had visited the several posts they might 
take, when our army should enter France, to 

v. 



HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


2 9 ° 

retard, to incommode, to distress us in our 
march, and even to make a decisive stand and to 
give us battle. I take what I say here from indis¬ 
putable authority, that of the persons consulted 
and employed in preparing for this great distress. 
Had we been beaten, or had we been forced 
to retire towards our own frontier in the Low 
Countries, after penetrating into France, the 
hopes on which we protracted the war would 
have been disappointed, and, I think, the most 
sanguine would have then repented refusing the 
offers made at Gertruydenberg. But if we had 
beaten the French,—for it was scarce lawful in 
those days of our presumption to suppose the 
contrary,—would the whole monarchy of Spain 
have been our immediate and certain prize ? 
Suppose, and I suppose it on good grounds, my 
lord, that the French had resolved to defend 
their country inch by inch, and that Lewis the 
fourteenth had determined to retire with his 
court to Lyons or elsewhere, and to defend the 
passage of the Loire when he could no longer 
defend that of the Seine, rather than submit to 
the terms imposed on him : what should we have 
done in this case?—must we not have accepted 
such a peace as we had refused; or have pro¬ 
tracted the war till we had conquered France 
first in order to.conquer Spain afterwards? Did 
we hope for revolutions in France? we had 
hoped for them in Spain; and we should have 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 


29 r 

been bubbles of our hopes in both. That there 
was a spirit raised against the government of 
Lewis the fourteenth, in his court, nay in liis 
family, and that strange schemes of private am¬ 
bition were formed and forming there, I cannot 
doubt; and some effects of this spirit produced, 
perhaps, the greatest mortifications that he suffered, 
in the latter part of his reign. 

A light instance of this spirit is all I will quote 
at this lime. I supped, in the year one thousand 
seven hundred and fifteen, at a house in France 
where two persons * of no small figure, who had 
been in great company that night, arrived very 
late. The conversation turned on the events of 
the preceding war, and the negociations of the. 
late peace : in the process of the conversation, 
one of them f broke loose, and said, directing 
his discourse to me, u Fous auriez pu nous ecra - 
ser dans ce temps-ld : pourquoi ne Vdvez-vous 
pas fait?” I answered him coolly, “ Parce que 
dans ce temps-Id nous ri* av oils plus craint votre 
puissance .” This anecdote, too trivial for his¬ 
tory, may find its place in a letter, and may 
serve to confirm what I have admitted, that there 
were persons, even in France, who expected to 
find their private account in the distress of their 
country. But these persons were a few men of 

* The duke de La Feuillade and Mortemar. 
f La Feuillade. 


Y 2 


4 

292 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

wild imaginations and strong passions, more en¬ 
terprising than capable, and of more name than 
credit.. In general, the endeavours of Lewis the 
fourteenfh, and the sacrifices he offered to make 
ip order to obtain a peace, had attached his- 
people more than ever to him; and if Lewis had 
determined not to go farther than he had offered at 
Gertruydenberg, in abandoning his grandson, the 
French nation would not have abandoned him. 

But to resume what I have said or hinted 
already : the necessary consequences of protract¬ 
ing the war in order to dethrone Philip, from 
the year one thousand seven hundred and eleven 
inclusively, could be no other than these: our 
design of penetrating into France might have 
been defeated, and have become fatal to us by a 
reverse of fortune; our first success might not 
have obliged the French to submit; and we 
might have had France to conquer,after we 
had failed in our first attempt to conquer Spain; 
and even in order to proceed to a second: the 
French might have submitted, and the Spa¬ 
niards not; and whilst the former had been 
employed to force the latter, according to the 
scheme of the allies; or whilst, the latter sub¬ 
mitting likewise, Philip had evacuated Spain, 
the high allies might have gone together by the 
ears, about dividing the spoil and disposing of 
the crown of Spain. To these issues were things 
brought by protracting the war; by refusing to 


‘HISTORY OF EUROPE. 203 

'IHake peace, on the principles of the grand 
alliance at worst, in one thousand seven hundred 
and six; and by refusing to grant it, even on 
those of the new plan, in one thousand seven 
hundred and ten. Such contingent events as 
I have mentioned stood in prospect before us. 
The end of the war was removed out of sight; 
and they, who clamoured rather than argued for 
the continuation of it, contented themselves to 
affirm that France was not enough reduced, and 
that no peace ought to be made as long as a 
prince of the house of Bourbon remained on the 
Spanish throne. When they would think France 
enough reduced, it was impossible to guess.— 
Whether they intended to join the Imperial and 
Spanish crowns on the head of Charles, who had 
declared his irrevocable resolution to continue 
the war till the conditions insisted upon at 
Gertruydenberg were obtained; whether they in¬ 
tended to bestow Spain and the Indies on some 
other prince ; and how this great alteration in 
their own plan should be effected by common 
consent; how possession should be given to 
Charles, or to any other prince, not only of 
Spain but of all the Spanish dominions out of 
Europe, where the attachment to Philip was at 
least as strong as in Castile, and where it would 
not be so easy, the distance and extent of these 
dominions considered, to oblige the Spaniards 
to submit to another government: these points, 



2 C )4 HISTORY of EtTROTE. 

and many more equally necessary to be deter¬ 
mined, and equally difficult to prepare, were 
neither determined nor prepared; so that wc 
were reduced to carry on the war, after the 
death of the emperor Joseph, without any posi¬ 
tive scheme agreed to, as the scheme of the future 
peace, by the allies. That of the grand alliance 
we had long before renounced; that of the new 
plan was become ineligible; and if it had been 
eligible, it would have been impracticable, because 
of the division it would have created among the 
allies themselves ; several of whom would not 
liave consented, notwithstanding his irrevocable 
resolution that the emperor should be king of 
Spain. I know not what part the protractors of 
the war, in the depth of their policy, intended 
to take : our nation had contributed, and acted 
so long under the direction of their councils, for 
the grandeur of the house of Austria, like one of 
the hereditary kingdoms usurped by that family, 
that it is lawful to think their intention might be 
to unite the Imperial and Spanish crowns; but 
I rather think they had no very determinate 
view, beyond that of continuing the war as long 
as they could. The late lord Oxford told me, 
that my lord Somers being pressed, I know not 
on what occasion nor by whom, on the unneces¬ 
sary and ruinous continuation of the war, instead 
of giving reasons to show the necessity of it, con¬ 
tented himself to reply, that he had been bred 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


up in a hatred of France : this was a strange 
reply for a wise man ; and yet I know not 
whether he could have given a better then, or 
whether any of his pupils could give a better 
now. 

The whig party in general acquired great and 
just popularity, in the reign of our Charles the 
second, by the clamour they raised against the 
conduct of that prince in foreign affairs. They 
who succeeded to the name rather than the prin¬ 
ciples of this party after the revolution, and who 
have had the administration of the government 
in their hands with very little interruption ever 
since, pretending to act on the same principle, 
have run into an extreme as vicious and as con¬ 
trary to all the rules of good policy, as that which 
their predecessors exclaimed against. The old 
wliigs complained of the inglorious figure we 
made, whilst our court was the bubble and our 
king the pensioner of France, and insisted that 
the growing ambition and power of Lewis the 
fourteenth should be opposed in lime : the mo¬ 
dern whigs boasted, and still boast, of the glorious 
figure we made, whilst we reduced ourselves, by 
their councils and under their administrations, 
to be the bubbles of our pensioners—that is of our 
allies, and whilst we measured our efforts in war, 
and the continuation of them, without any regard 
to the interest and abilities of our own country, 
without a just and sober regard, such an one as 


296 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

contemplates objects in their true light, and sees 
them in their true magnitude, to the general 
system of power in Europe ; and, in short, with a 
principal regard merely to particular interests at 
home and abroad. I say at home and abroad ; 
because it is not less true, that they have sacrificed 
th e wealth of their country to the forming and 
maintaining a party at home, than that they have 
clone so to the forming and maintaining, beyond 
all pretences of necessity, alliances abroad. These 
general assertions may be easily justified without 
having recourse to private anecdotes, as your 
lordship will find when you consider the whole 
series of our conduct in the two wars; in that 
which preceded and that which succeeded im¬ 
mediately the beginning of the present century, 
but above all the last of them. In the administra¬ 
tions that preceded the revolution, trade had flou¬ 
rished, and our nation had grown opulent: but 
the general interest of Europe had been too much 
neglected by us, and slavery under the umbrage • 
of prerogative had been well nigh established 
among us : in those that have followed, taxes 
upon taxes and debts upon debts have been 
perpetually accumulated, till a small number of 
families have grown into immense wealth, and 
national beggary has been brought upon us, under 
the specious pretences of supporting a common 
cause against France, reducing her exorbitant 
power, and poising that of Europe more equally 


HISTORY OF EUROFE. 297 

in the public balancelaudable designs, no doubt, 
as far as they were real; but such as, being con¬ 
verted into mere pretences, have been productive 
of much evil; some of which we feel and have 
long felt, and some will extend its consequences 
to our latest posterity. The reign of prerogative 
was short; and the evils and the dangers, to which 
we were exposed by it, ended with it: but the 
reign of false and squandering policy has lasted 
long, it lasts still, and will finally complete our 
ruin. Beggary has been the consequence of sla¬ 
very in some countries: slavery will be probably 
the consequence of beggary in ours ; and if it is 
so, we know at whose door to lay it. If we had 
finished the war in one thousand seven hundred 
and six, we should have reconciled like a wise 
people our foreign and our domestic interests as 
nearly as possible; we should have secured the 
former sufficiently, and not have sacrificed the 
latter as entirely as we did by the prosecution of 
the war afterwards. You will not be able to see 
without astonishment, how the charge of the war 
increased yearly upon us from the beginning of 
it; nor how immense a sum we paid in the course 
of it to supply the deficiencies of our confede¬ 
rates. Your astonishment, and indignation too, 
will increase, when you come to compare the 
progress that was made from the year one thou¬ 
sand seven hundred and six exclusively, with the 
expense of more than thirty millions, ( I do not 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


208 
.% 

exaggerate, though I write upon memory,) that 
this progress cost us, to the year one thousand 
seven hundred and eleven inclusively. Upon this 
view, your lordship will be persuaded that it was 
high time to take the resolution of making peace, 
when the queen thought fit to change her mi¬ 
nistry, towards the end of the year one thousand 
seven hundred and ten. It was high time, indeed, 
to save our country from absolute insolvency and 
bankruptcy, by putting an end to a scheme of 
conduct, which the prejudices of a party, the 
whimsy of some particular men, the private in¬ 
terest of more, and the ambition and avarice of 
our allies, who had been invited as it were to a 
scramble by the preliminaries of one thousand 
seven hundred and nine, alone maintained. The 
persons, therefore, who came into power at this 
time, hearkened, and they did well to hearken, 
to the first overtures that were made them ; the 
disposition of their enemies invited them to do 
so, but that of their friends, and that of a party 
at home who had nursed and been nursed by the 
war, might have deterred them from it; for the 
difficulties and dangers, to which they must be 
exposed in carrying forward this great work, 
could escape none of them. In a letter to a friend 
it may be allowed me to say, that they did not 
escape me ; and that I foresaw, as contingent but 
not improbable events, a good part of what has 
happened to me since. Though it was a duty, 


HISTORY OF EIJROTF. 299 

therefore, that we owed to our country, to deliver 
her from the necessity of bearing any longer so 
unequal a part in so unnecessary a war, yet was 
there some degree of merit in performing it I 
think so strongly in this manner, I am so incor¬ 
rigible, my lord, that if I could be placed in the 
same circumstances again, I would take the same 
resolution and act the same part. Age and ex¬ 
perience might enable me to act with more ability, 
and greater skill • but all I have suffered since the 
death of the queen should not hinder me from 
acting. Notwithstanding this, I shall not be sur¬ 
prised if you think that the peace of Utrecht was 
not answerable to the success of the war, nor to 
the efforts made in it : I think so myself, and 
have always owned, even when it was making 
and made, that I thought so. Since we had com¬ 
mitted a successful folly, we ought to have reaped 
more advantage from it than we did; and, whe¬ 
ther we had left Philip or placed another prince 
on the throne of Spain, we ought to have reduced 
the power of France, and to have strengthened 
her neighbours much more than we did. We 
ought to have reduced her power for generations 
to come, and not to have contented ourselves 
with a momentary reduction of it. France was 
exhausted to a great degree of men and money, 
and her government had no credit; but they, who 
took this for a sufficient reduction of her power, 
looked but a little way before them, and reasoned 


OCO HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

too superficially : several such there were, how¬ 
ever; for, as it has been said that there is no ex¬ 
travagancy which some philosopher or other has 
not maintained, so your experience, young as 
you are, must have shown you, that there is no 
absurd extreme into which our party-politicians 
of Great Britain are not prone to fall, concerning 
the state and conduct of public affairs. But it 
France was exhausted, so were we and so were 
the Dutch : famine rendered her condition much 
more miserable than ours, at one time, in ap¬ 
pearance and in reality too; but as soon as this 
accident, that had distressed the French and 
frightened Lewis the fourteenth to the utmost 
degree, and the immediate consequences of it, were 
over, it was obvious to observe, though few 
made the observation, that, whilst we were unable 
to raise in a year, by some millions at least, the 
expenses of the year, the French were willing and 
able to bear the imposition of the tenth over and 
above all the other taxes that had been laid upon 
them. This observation had the weight it de¬ 
served; and sure it deserved to have some anions 
those who made it, at the time spoken ofi and 
who did not think that the war was to be conti¬ 
nued as long as a parliament could be prevailed 
on to vote money. But supposing it to have de¬ 
served none ; supposing the power of France to 
have been reduced as low as you please, with 
respect to her inward state; yet still I affirm, that 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5oi 

such a reduction could not be permanent, and 
was not therefore sufficient. Whoever knows 
the nature of her government, the temper of her 
people, and the natural advantages she has in 
commerce over all the nations that surround her, 
knows that an arbitrary government and the 
temper of her people enable her on particular 
occasions to throw off a load of debt much more 
easily, and with consequences much less to be 
feared, than any of her neighbours can; that 
although in the general course ot things, trade 
be cramped and industry vexed by ibis arbitrary 
government, yet neither one nor the other is 
oppressed; and the temper of the people and the 
natural advantages of the country are such, that 
how great soever her distress be at any point of 
time, twenty years of tranquillity suffice to re¬ 
establish her affairs, and to enrich her again at 
the expense of all the nations of Europe. If any, 
one doubts of this, let him consider the condition 
in which this kingdom was left by Lewis the 
fourteenth; the strange pranks the late duke of 
Orleans played, during his regency and adminis¬ 
tration, with the whole system of public revenue 
and private property; and then let him tell him¬ 
self, that the revenues of France, the tenth taken 
off', exceed all the expenses of her government 
by many millions of livres already, and will ex¬ 
ceed them by many more in another year. 

Upon the whole matter, my lord, the low and 




002 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


exhausted state to which France was reduced by 
the last great war was but a momentary reduction 
of her power; and whatever real and more last¬ 
ing reduction the treaty of Utrecht brought about 
in some instances, it was not sufficient. The 
power of France would not have appeared as great 
as it did, when England and Holland armed them¬ 
selves and armed all Germany against her, if she 
had lain as open to the invasions of her enemies 
as her enemies lay to hers. Her inward strength 
was great; but the strength of those frontiers 
which Lewis the fourteenth was almost forty years 
in forming, and which the folly of all his neigh¬ 
bours in their turns suffered him to form, made 
this strength as formidable as it became. The 
true reduction of the exorbitant power of France, 
(I take no notice of chimerical projects about 
changing her government,) consisted therefore in 
disarming her frontiers, and fortifying the bar¬ 
riers against her, by the cession and demolition 
of many more places than she yielded up at the 
treaty of Utrecht; but not of more than she might 
have been obliged to sacrifice to her own imme¬ 
diate relief, and to the future security of her neigh¬ 
bours. That she was not obliged to make these 
sacrifices, I affirm was owing solely to those who 
opposed the peace ; and I am willing to put my 
whole credit with your lordship, and the whole 
merits of a cause that has been so much contested, 
on this issue. I say a cause that has been so much 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5o5 

contested ; for in truth, I think it is no longer a 
doubt any where, except in British pamphlets, 
whether the conduct of those who neither de¬ 
clined treating, as was done in one thousand seven 
hundred and six; nor pretended to treat without 
a design of concluding, as was done in one thou¬ 
sand seven hundred and nine and ten, but car¬ 
ried the great work of the peace forward to its 
consummation ; or the conduct of those who 
opposed this work in every step of its progress, 
saved the power of France from a greater and a 
sufficient reduction at the treaty of Utrecht. The 
very ministers, who were employed in this fatal 
opposition, are obliged to confess this truth. How 
should they deny it ? Those of Vienna [may 
complain that the emperor had not the entire 
Spanish monarchy; or those of Holland that the 
States were not made masters directly and indi¬ 
rectly of the whole Low Countries: but neither 
they, nor any one else that has any sense of 
shame about him, can deny that the late queen, 
though she was resolved to retreat because she 
was resolved to finish the war, yet was to the 
utmost degree desirous to treat in a perfect union 
with her allies, and to procure them all the rea¬ 
sonable terms they could expect; and much 
better than those they reduced themselves to the 
necessity of accepting, by endeavouring to wrest 
the negociation out of her hands. The disunion 
pf the allies gave France the advantages she im- 



3o4 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


proved. The sole question is, who caused this 
disunion ? and that will be easily decided by every 
impartial man, who informs himself carefully of 
the public anecdotes of that time. If the private 
anecdotes were to be laid open as well as those, 
and I think it almost time they should, the whole 
monstrous scene would appear, and shock the 
eye of every honest man. I do not intend to 
descend into many particulars at this time: but 
whenever I, or any other person as well informed 
as I, shall descend into a full deduction of such 
particulars, it will become undeniably evident 
that the most violent opposition imaginable, car¬ 
ried on by the Germans and the Dutch in league 
with a party in Britain, began as soon as the first 
overtures were made to the queen, before she 
had so much as begun to treat; and was there¬ 
fore an opposition not to this or that plan of 
treaty, but in truth to all treaty; and especially 
to one wherein Great Britain took the lead, or 
was to have any particular advantage. That the 
Imperialists meant no treaty, unless a preliminary 
and impracticable condition of it was to set the 
crown of Spain on the emperor’s head, will appear 
from this; that prince Eugene, when he came into 
England, long after the death of Joseph and ele¬ 
vation of Charles, upon an errand most unworthy 
of so great a man, treated always on this suppo¬ 
sition ; and I remember with how much inward 
impatience I assisted at conferences held with him 

-* i r .mrrt 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5o5 

concerning quotas for renewing the war in Spain, 
in the very same room, at the cockpit, where the 
queen’s ministers had been told in plain terms, 
a little before, by those of other allies, “ that 
their masters would not consent that the Im¬ 
perial and Spanish crowns should unite on the 
same head.” That the Dutch were not averse 
to all treaty, but meant none wherein Great Bri¬ 
tain was to have any particular advantage, will 
appear from this ; that their minister declared 
himself ready and authorised to stop the opposi¬ 
tion made to the queen’s measures, by presenting 
a memorial, wherein he would declare, “ that 
his masters entered into them, and were re¬ 
solved not to continue the war for the recovery 
of Spain, provided the queen would consent 
that they should garrison Gibraltar and Port 
Mahon jointly with us, and share equally the 
Assiento, the South Sea ship, and whatever 
should be granted by the Spaniards to the queen 
and her subjects.” That the whigs engaged in 
this league with foreign powers against their coun- 

I try as well as their queen, and with a phrensy 
more unaccountable than that which made and 
maintained the solemn league and covenant for¬ 
merly, will appear from this; that their at¬ 
tempts were directed not only to wrest the nego- 
ciations out of the queen’s hands, but to oblige 
their country to carry on the war, on the same 
unequal foot that had cost hey already about- 



3o 6 


/ 


HISTORY OF EUROFH, 

twenty millions more than she ought to have con¬ 
tributed to it. For they not only continued to 
abet the emperor, whose inability to supply his 
quota was confessed ; but the Dutch likewise, 
after the Slates had refused to ratify the treaty 
their minister signed at London towards the end 
of the year one thousand seven hundred and ele¬ 
ven, and by which the queen united herself more 
closely than ever to them; engaging to pursue 
the war, to conclude the peace, and to guarantee 
it when concluded, jointly witli them; “ pro¬ 
vided they would keep the engagements they 
had taken with her, and the conditions of pro¬ 
portionate expense under which our nation had 
entered into the war/’ Upon such schemes as 
these was the opposition to the treaty of Utrecht 
carried on: and the means employed, and the 
means projected to be employed, were worthy of 
such schemes; open, direct, and indecent defiance 
of legal authority, secret conspiracies against the 
state, and base machinations against particular 
men, who had no other crime than that of en¬ 
deavouring to conclude a war under the authority 
of the queen, which a party in the nation endea¬ 
voured to prolong against her authority. Had 
the good policy of concluding the war been 
doubtful, it was certainly as lawful for those, who 
thought it good, to advise it, as it had been for 
those, who thought it bad, to advise the contrary; 
and the decision of the sovereign on the throne 





HISTORY OP EUROPE. 5o»Jt 

Ought to have terminated the contest. But he 
who had judged by the appearances of things on 
one side, at that time, would have been apt to 
think, that putting an end to the war, or to Magna 
Charta, was the same thing ; that the queen on 
the throne had no right to govern independently 
of her successor ; nor any of her subjects a right 
to administer the government under her, though 
called to it by her, except those whom she had 
thought fit to lay aside. Extravagant as these prin¬ 
ciples are, no other could justify the conduct 
held at that time by those who opposed the 
peace : and as I said just now, that the phrensy 
of this league was more unaccountable than that 
of the solemn league and covenant, I might have 
added, that it was not very many degrees less 
criminal. Some of those, who charged the queen’s 
ministers, after her death, with imaginary trea¬ 
sons, had been guilty during her life of real trea¬ 
sons : and I can compare the folly and violence 
of the spirit that prevailed at that time, both 
before the conclusion of the peace, and under 
pretence of danger to the succession after it, to 
nothing more nearly than to the folly and violence 
of the spirit that seized the tories soon after the 
accession of George the first. The latter, indeed, 
which wasprovoked by unjust and impolitic per¬ 
secution, broke out in open rebellion : the for¬ 
mer might have done so, if the queen had lived 
a little longer. But—to return. 

x 2 

/ 






3o8 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


The obstinate adherence of the Dutch to this 
league in opposition to the queen, rendered the 
conferences of Utrecht, when they were opened, 
no better than mock conferences: had the men 
who governed that commonwealth been wise and 
Jionest enough to unite, at least then, cordially 
With the queen, and, since they could not hinder 
a congress, to act in concert with her in it, we 
should have been still in time to maintain a 
sufficient union among the allies and a sufficient 
superiority over the French. All the specific 
demands that the former made, as well as the 
Dutch themselves, either to incumber the ne- 
gociation, or to have in reserve, according to 
the artifice usually employed on such occasions, 
certain points from which to depart in the course 
of it with advantage, would not have been ob¬ 
tained; but all the essential demands, all in par¬ 
ticular that were really necessary to secure the 
harriers in the Low Countries and of the four 
circles against France, would have been so: for 
France must have continued, in this case, rather 
to sue for peace than to treat on an equal foot. 
The first dauphin, son of Lewis the fourteenth, 
died several months before this congress began; 
the second dauphin, his grandson, and the wife 
and the eldest son of this prince, died soon after 
it began, of the same unknown distemper, and 
were buried together in the same grave: such 
family misfortunes following a long series of 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5 og 

national misfortunes, made the old king, though 
he bore them with much seeming magnanimity* 
desirous to get out of the war at any tolerable 
rate, that he might not run the risk of leaving 
a child of five years old, the present king, en¬ 
gaged in it. The queen did all that was morally 
possible, except giving up her honor in the ne- 
gociation, and the interest of her subjects in the 
conditions of peace, to procure this union with 
the states-general. But all she could do was 
vain ; and the same phrensy, that had hindered 
the Dutch from improving to their and to the 
common advantage the public misfortunes of 
France, hindered them from improving to the 
same purposes the private misfortunes of the 
house of Bourbon : they continued to flatter 
themselves that they should force the queen out 
of her measures, by their intrigues with the party 
in Britain who opposed thesp measures, and even 
raise an insurrection against her: but these in¬ 
trigues, and those of prince Eugene, were known 
and disappointed; and M. Buys had the mortifi¬ 
cation to be reproached with them publicly, when 
he came to take leave of the lords of the council, 
by the earl of Oxford; who entered into many 
particulars that could not be denied, of the pri¬ 
vate transactions of this sort, to which Buys had 
been a party in compliance with his instructions, 
and as I believe much against his own sense and 
inclinations. As the season for taking the field 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


5 lO 

advanced, the league proposed to defeat the success 
of the congress by the events of the campaign. 
But instead of defeating the success of the con¬ 
gress, the events of the campaign served only 
to turn this success in favor of France: at the 
beginning of the year, the queen and the States 
in concert might have given the law to friend 
and foe, with great advantage to the former, 
and with such a detriment to the latter as the 
causes of the war rendered just, the events ol it 
reasonable, and the objects of it necessary : at 
the end of the year, the allies Avere no longer in 
a state of giving nor the French of receiving the 
law; and the Dutch had recourse to the queen’s 
good offices, when they could oppose and durst 
insult her no longer: even then, these offices 
were employed with zeal and with some effect 
for them. 

Thus the war entjpd much more favorably to 
France than she expected or they who put an 
end to it designed : the queen would have 
humbled and weakened this power; the allies 
who opposed her would have crushed it, and 
have raised another as exorbitant on the ruins 
of it: neither one nor the other succeeded; and 
they who meant to ruin the French power pre¬ 
served it, by opposing those who meant to 
reduce it. 

Since I have mentioned the events of the year 
«ne thousand seven hundred and twelve, and 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5 ll 

tlie decisive turn they gave to the negotiations 
in favor of France, give me leave to say some¬ 
thing more on this subject: you will find that 
I shall do so with much impartiality. The 
disastrous events of this campaign in the Low 
Countries, and the consequences of them, have 
been imputed to the separation of the British 
troops from the army of the allies: the clamor 
against the measure was great at that lime, and 
the prejudices which this clamor raised are 
great still among some men: but as clamor 
raised these prejudices, other prejudices gave 
birth to this clamor; and it is no wonder they 
should do so among persons bent on con¬ 
tinuing the war; since I own very freely, that 
when the first step that led to this separation 
came to my knowledge, (which was not an hour, 
by the way, before I wrote by the queen’s order 
to the duke of Ormond, in the very words in 
which the order was advised and given, “ that 
he should not engage in any siege, nor hazard 
a battle, till further order,”) I was surprised and 
hurt; so much, that if I had had an opportunity 
of speaking in private to the queen, after I had 
received monsieur De Torcy’s letter to me on 
the subject, and before she went into the council, 
I should have spoken to her, I think, in the first 
heat against it. The truth is, however, that the 
step was justifiable at that point of time in every 
respect, and therefore that the consequences are 


5 iq history of Europe. 

to be charged to the account of those who drew 
them on themselves; not to the account of the 
queen, nor of the minister who advised her. The 
step was justifiable to the allies surely, since the 
queen took no more upon her, no, not so much 
by far, in making it, as many of them had done 
by suspending, or endangering, or defeating ope¬ 
rations in the heat of the war, when they declined 
to send their troops, or delayed the march of 
them, or neglected the preparations they were 
obliged to make, on the most frivolous pretences, 
; Your lordship will find, in the course of your 
inquiries, many particular instances of what is 
here pointed out in general: but I cannot help 
descending into some view of those that regard 
the emperor and the States General, who cried 
the loudest and with the most effect, though 
they had the least reason, on account of tlieir 
own conduct, to complain of the queen’s. 
— With what face could the emperor, for 
instance, presume to complain of the orders 
sent to the duke of Ormond? I say nothing 
of his deficiencies; which were so great, that 
he had, at this very time, little more than one 
regiment that could be said properly to act 
against France and Spain at his sole charge; as 
I affirmed to prince Eugene before the lords of 
the council, and demonstrated upon paper the 
next day;—I say nothing of all that preceded 
the year one thousand seven hundred and sevcn y 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 5 i 3 

on winch I should have much to say: but I 
desire your lordship only to consider, what you 
will find to have passed after the famous year one 
thousand seven hundred and six. Was it with 
the queen’s approbation, or against her will, that 
the emperor made the treaty for the evacuation 
of Lombardy, and let out so great a number of 
French regiments time enough to recruit them¬ 
selves at home, to march into Spain, and to 
destroy the British forces at Almanza? Was it 
with her approbation, or against her will, that, 
instead of employing all his forces and all his 
endeavours to make the greatest design of the 
whole war (the entreprise on Toulon) succeed, 
he detached twelve thousand men to reduce the 

* * * • * • ■ l » O'* V. f . . • . ’ y > » - » i. < -4 • '.»% 

kingdom of Naples, that must have fallen of 
course ? and that ail opportunity of ruining the 
whole maritimefforce of France, and of ruining 
or subduing her provinces on that side, was 
lost, merely by this unnecessary diversion, and 
by the conduct of prince Eugene, which left no 
room to doubt that he gave occasion to this fatal 
disappointment on purpose, and in concert with 
the court of Vienna? 

Turn your eyes, my lord, on the conduct 
of the States, and you will find reason to be 
astonished at the arrogance of the men who 
governed in them at this time, and who pre¬ 
sumed to exclaim against a queen of Great 
Britain, for doing what their deputies had done. 


5 i 4 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

more than once in that very country, and in 
the course of that very war. In the year one 
thousand seven hundred and twelve, at the 
latter end of a war; when conferences for treat¬ 
ing a peace were opened; when the least sinister 
event in the held would take off from that su¬ 
periority which the allies had in the congress; 
and when the past success of the war had al¬ 
ready given them as much of this superiority 
as they wanted to obtain a safe, advantageous 
honorable, and lasting peace, the queen di¬ 
rected her general to suspend till further order 
the operations of her troops: in one thousand 
seven hundred and three—in the beginning of 
a war, when something was to be risked or 
no success to be expected ; and when the bad 
situation of affairs in Germany and Italy' re¬ 
quired, in a particular manner, that efforts 
should be made in the Low Countries, and that 
the war should not languish there whilst it 
was unsuccessful every where else;—the duke 
of Marlborough determined to attack the French^ 
but the Dutch deputies would not suffer their 
troops to go on; defeated his design in the very 
moment of its execution, if I remember well; 
and gave no other reason for their proceeding 
than that which is a reason against every battle, 
the possibility of being beaten. The circum¬ 
stance of proximity to their frontier was urged, 
I know; and it was said, that their provinces 


HISTORY OF EUROPE^ 


01 5 


would lie exposed to the incursions of the 
French if they lost the battle. But besides 
other answers to this Vain pretence, it was ob¬ 
vious that they had ventured battles as near 
home as this would have been fought, and that 
the way to remove the enemy farther off was 
by action, not inaction. Upon tlie whole mat¬ 
ter; the Dutch deputies stopped the progress of 
the confederate army at this time, by exercising 
an arbitrary and independent authority over the 
troops of the States. In one thousand seven 
hundred and five, when the success of the pre¬ 
ceding campaign should have given them an 
entire confidence in the duke of Marlborough’s 
conduct; when returning from the Moselle to 
the Low Countries, he began to make himself 
and the common cause amends for the disap¬ 
pointment which pique and jealousy in the 
prince of Baden, or usual sloth and negligence 
in the Germans, had occasioned just before, by 
forcing the French lines; when he was in the 
full pursuit of this advantage, and when he was 
marching to attack an enemy half defeated and 
more than half dispirited; nay, when he had 
made his dispositions for attacking, and part of 
his troops had passed the Dyle—the deputies 
of the States once more tied up his hands, took 
from him an opportunity too fair to be lost ; 
for these, I think, were some of the terms of 
his complaint; and in short the confederacy 


5i6 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


received an affront, at least, where we might have 
obtained a victory. Let this that has been said 
serve as a specimen of the independency on 
the queen, her councils, and her generals, with 
which these powers acted in the course of the 
war; who were not ashamed to find fault that 
the queen, once, and at the latter end of it? 
presumed to suspend the operation of her troops 
till farther order. But be it that they foresaw 
what this farther order would be. They foresaw 
then, that as soon as Dunkirk should be put 
into the queen’s hands, she would consent to a 
suspension of arms for two months, and invite 
them to do the same. Neither this foresight, 
nor the strong declaration which the bishop of 
Bristol made by the queen’s order at Utrecht, 
and which showed them that her resolution was 
not taken to submit to the league into which 
they had entered against her, could prevail on 
them to make a right use of these two months, 
by endeavouring to renew their union and good 
understanding with the queen; though I can say 
with the greatest truth, and they could not doubt 
of it at the time, that she would have gone more 
than half way to meet them, and that her mi¬ 
nisters would have done their utmost to bring 
it about. Even then we might have resumed 
the superiority we began to lose in the congress; 
for, the queen and the States uniting, the prin¬ 
cipal allies would have united with them, and. 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 317 

in tills case, it would have been so much the 
interest of France to avoid any chance of seeing 
the war renewed, that she must, and she would, 
have made sure of peace, during the suspension, 
on much worse terms for herself and for Spain 
than she made it afterwards. But the prudent 
and sober States continued to act like fro ward 
children, or like men drunk with resentment 
and passion ; and such will the conduct be of 
the wise governments in every circumstance, 
where a spirit of faction and of private interest 
prevails, among those who are at the head, over 
reason of state. After laying aside all decency 
in their behaviour towards the queen, they laid 
aside all caution for themselves: they declared 
“ they would carry on the war without her.” 
Landrecy seemed, in their esteem, of more im¬ 
portance than Dunkirk; and the opportunity of 
wasting some French provinces, or of putting 
the whole event of the war on the decision of 
another battle, preferable to the other measure 
that Jay open to them; that I mean, of trying 
in good earnest, and in an honest concert with 
the queen during the suspension of arms, whe¬ 
ther such terms of peace, as ought to satisfy 
them and the oilier allies, might not be imposed 
on France. 

If the confederate army had broke into France, 
the campaign before this, or in any former cam¬ 
paign; and if the Germans and the Dutch had 


5l8 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

exercised then the same inhumanity, as the 
French had exercised in their provinces in for¬ 
mer wars; if they had burned Versailles, and 
even Paris, and if they had disturbed the ashes 
of the dead princes that repose at St. Denis, 
every good man would have felt the horror 
that such cruelties inspire; no man could have 
said that the retaliation was unjust. But in 
one thousand seven hundred and twelve, it was 
too late, in every respect, to meditate such pro¬ 
jects. If the French had been unprepared to 
defend their frontier, either for want of means, 
or in a vain confidence that the peace would 
he made, as our king Charles the second was 
unprepared to defend his coast at the latter end 
of his first war with Holland, the allies might 
have played a sure game in satisfying their 
vengeance on the French, as the Dutch did on 
us in one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven; 
and imposing harder terms on them, than those 
they offered, or would have accepted. But this 
was not the case. The French army was, I 
believe, more numerous than the army of the 
allies, even before separation, and certainly in 
a much better condition than two or three years 
before, when a deluge of blood was spilt to 
dislodge them, for we did no more, at Mai pi a- 
quet. Would the Germans and the Dutch have 
found it more easy to force them at this time, 
than it was at that? Would not the French 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. Sig 

have fought with as much obstinacy to save 
Paris, as they did to save Mons? and, with all 
the regard due to the duke of Ormond and to 
prince Eugene, was the absence of the duke of 
Marlborough of no consequence? Turn this 
affair every way in your thoughts, my lord, 
and you will find that the Germans and the 
Dutch had nothing in theirs, but to break, at 
any rate and at any risk, the negociations 
that were begun, and to reduce Great Britain 
to the necessity of continuing—what she had 
been too long, a province of the confederacy. 
A province indeed, and not one of the best 
treated: since the confederates assumed a right 
of obliging her to keep her pacts with them, 
and of dispensing with their obligations to her* 
of exhausting her, without rule, or proportion, 
or measure, in the support of a war, to which 
she alone contributed more than all of them, 
and in which she had no longer an immediate 
interest, nor even any remote interest that was 
not common, or, with respect to her, very du¬ 
bious ’ and, after all this, of complaining that 
the queen presumed to hearken to overtures of 
peace, and to set a negociation on foot, whilst 
their humour and ambition required that the 
war should be prolonged for an indefinite time, 
and for a purpose that Avas either bad or inde¬ 
terminate. 

The suspension of arms, that began in the 


520 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

Low Countries, was continued, and extended 
afterwards by the act I signed at Fontainebleau* 
The fortune of the war turned at the same time i 
and all those disgraces followed, which obliged 
the Dutch to treat, and to desire the assistance of 
the queen, whom they had sat at defiance so 
lately. This assistance they had, as effectually as 
it could be given, in the circumstances to which 
they had reduced themselves and the whole 
alliance; and the peace of Great Britain, Portu¬ 
gal, Savoy, Prussia, and the States General, was 
made without his imperial majesty’s concurrence, 
in the spring of one thousand seven hundred and 
thirteen; as it might have been made, much more 
advantageously for them all, in that of one thou¬ 
sand seven hundred and twelve. Less obsti¬ 
nacy on the part of the States, and perhaps 
more decisive resolutions on the part of the 
queen, would have wound up all these divided 
threads in one, and have finished this great work 
much sooner and better. I say, perhaps more 
decisive resolutions on the part of the queen; be¬ 
cause, although I think that I should have con¬ 
veyed her orders for signing a treaty of peace with 
France before the armies took the field, much 
more willingly than I executed them afterwards 
in signing that of the cessation of arms; yet I do 
not presume to decide, but shall desire your lord- 
ship to do so, on a review of all circumstances, 
some of which I shall just mention. 


HISTORY OF EUROPE* 

The league made for protracting the war having 
opposed the queen to the utmost of their power, 
and by means of every sort, from the first ap¬ 
pearances of a negocialion; the general effect of 
this violent opposition, on her and her ministers, 
Was to make them proceed by slower and more 
cautious steps; the particular effect of it was to 
oblige them to open the eyes of the nation, and 
to inflame the people with a desire of peace, 
by showing, in the most public and solemn 
manner, how unequally we were burdened, and 
how unfairly we were treated by our allies* 
The first gave an air of diffidence and timidity 
to their conduct, which encouraged the league, 
and gave vigor to the opposition : the second 
irritated the Dutch particularly; for the emperor 
and the other allies had the modesty, at least, 
not to pretend to bear any proportion in the 
expense of the war: and thus the two powers, 
whose union was the most essential, were the most 
at variance; and the queen was obliged to act in a 
closer conceit with her enemy who desired peace, 
than she would have done if her allies had been 
less obstinately bent to protract the War. During 
these transactions, my lord Oxford, who had his 
correspondencies apart, and a private thread of 
negociation always in his hand, entertained hopes 
that Philip would be brought to abandon Spain 
in favor of his father-in-law, and to content 
himself with the states of that prince, the king-* 


HISTORY OT EtTROBE. 


dom of Sicily, and the preservation of his right of 
succession to the crown of France. Whether my 
lord had any particular reasons for entertaining 
these hopes, besides the general reasons founded 
on the condition of France, on that of the Bour¬ 
bon family, and on the disposition of Lewis the 
fourteenth, I doubt very much. That Lewis, 
who sought and had need of seeking peace 
almost at any rate, and who saw that he could 
not obtain it, even of the queen, unless Philip 
abandoned immediately the crown of Spain, or 
abandoned immediately, by renunciation and a 
solemn act of exclusion, all pretension to that of 
France; that Lewis was desirous of the former, 
I cannot doubt: that Philip would have aban¬ 
doned Spain with the equivalents that have been 
mentioned, or either of them, I believe likewise; 
if the present king of France had died, when his 
father, mother, and eldest brother did; for they 
all had the same distemper. But Lewis would 
use no violent means to force his grandson; the 
queen would not continue the war to force him; 
Philip was too obstinate, and his wife too ambi¬ 
tious, to quit the crown of Spain, when they 
had discovered our weakness, and felt their own 
strength in that country, by their success in the 
campaign of one thousand seven hundred and 
ten: after which my lord Stanhope himself was 
convinced that Spain could not be conquered, 
nor kept, if it was conquered, -without a much 


mSTOKY OP EtJROfcE* 3^3 

greater army than it was possible for us to send 
thither. In that situation it was wild to imagine, 
as the earl of Oxford imagined or pretended to 
imagine, that they would quit the crown of 
Spain for a remote and uncertain prospect of 
succeeding to that of France, and content them¬ 
selves to be, in the mean time, princes of very ( 
small dominions. Philip, therefore, after strug¬ 
gling long that he might not be obliged to make 
his option till the succession of France lay open 
to him, was obliged to make it, and made it, for 
Spain. Now this, my lord, was the very crisis 
of the negociation : and to this point I apply 
what I said above of the effect of more decisive 
resolutions on the part of the queen. It was 
plain, that if she made the campaign in concert 
with her allies, she could be no longer mistress 
of the negociations, nor have almost a chance for 
conducting them to the issue she proposed- our 
ill success in the field would have rendered the 
French less tractable in the congress: our good 
success there would have rendered the allies so. 
On this principle, the queen suspended the ope¬ 
rations of her troops, and then concluded the 
cessation. 

Compare now the appearances and effect of 

this measure, with the appearances and effect 

that another measure would have had. In order 

to arrive at any peace, it was necessary to do 

what the queen did, or to do more; and, in order 

y 2 ^ 






524 HISTORY or EUROPE 

to arrive at a good one, it was necessary to be 
prepared to carry on the war, as well as to make 
a show of it 5 for she had the hard task upon her, 
of guarding against her allies and her enemies 
both : but in that ferment, when few men 
considered any thing coolly, the conduct of 
her general, after he took the held, though he 
covered the allies in the siege of Quesnoy, cor¬ 
responded ill in appearance with the declarations 
of carrying on the war vigorously that had been 
made on several occasions, before the campaign 
opened; it had an air of double dealing, and 
as such it passed among those who did not com¬ 
bine in their thoughts all the circumstances of 
the conjuncture, or who were infatuated with 
the national necessity of continuing the war* 
The clamour could not have been greater, if 
the queen had signed her peace separately; and, I 
think, the appearances might have been explained 
as favorably in one case as in the other. From 
the death of the emperor Joseph, it was neither 
our interest nor the common interest, well un¬ 
derstood, to set the crown of Spain on the present 
emperor’s head: as soon, therefore, as Philip 
had made his option, and if she had taken this 
resolution early his option would have been 
sooner made, 1 presume that the queen might 
have declared that she would not continue the 
war an hour longer to procure Spain for his 
imperial majesty; that the engagements she had 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


525 

taken whilst lie was archduke bound her no more; 
that, by his accession to the empire, the very 
nature of them was altered; that she took effectual 
measures to prevent, many future time, an union 
of the crowns of France and Spain, and upon the 
same principle would not consent, much less 
fight, to bring about an immediate union of the 
imperial and Spanish crowns; that they, who in¬ 
sisted to protract the war, intended this union; 
that they could intend nothing else, since they 
ventured to break with her rather than to treat, 
and were so eager to put the reasonable satisfac¬ 
tion, that they might have in every other case 
without hazard, on the uncertain events of war * 
that she would not be imposed on any longer in 
this manner; and that she had ordered her mi¬ 
nisters to sign her treaty with France, on the 
surrender of Dunkirk into her hands; that she 
pretended not to prescribe to her allies, but that 
she had insisted in their behalf on certain 
conditions that France was obliged to grant, to 
those of them who should sign their treaties at the 
same time as she did, or who should consent to 
an immediate cessation of arms, and* during the ces¬ 
sation, treat under her mediation. There had been 
more frankness and more dignity in this proceed ¬ 
ing, and the effect must have been more advan¬ 
tageous. France would have granted more for a 
separate peace'thanfor a cessation, and the Dutch 
would have been more influenced by the prosper 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


526 

of oile than of the other; especially since this pro¬ 
ceeding would have been very different from theirs 
at Munster and at Nimeglien, where they aban¬ 
doned their allies without any other pretence than 
the particular advantage they found in doing so. 
r A suspension of the operations of the queen’s 
troops, nay a cessation of arms between her 
and France, was not definitive; and they might, 
and they did, hope to drag her back under their 
and the German yoke. This therefore was not 
sufficient to check their obstinacy, nor to hinder 
them from making all the unfortunate haste they 
did make to get themselves beaten at Denain. But 
they would possibly have laid aside their vain 
hopes, if they had seen the queen’s ministers ready 
to sign her treaty of peace, and those of some prin¬ 
cipal allies ready to sign at the same time; in 
which case the mischief that followed had been 
prevented, and better terms of peace had been 
obtained for the confederacy ; a prince of the 
house of Bourbon, who could never be king of 
France, would have sat on the Spanish throne, 
instead of an emperor; the Spanish sceptre would 
have been weakened in the hands of one, and 
the imperial sceptre would have been strengthened 
in those of the other; France would have had no 
opportunity of recovering from former blows, 
nor of finishing a long unsuccessful war by two 
successful campaigns ; her ambition and her 
power would have declined with her old king, 


HISTORY OF EUROPE* 


527 

and under the minority that followed • one of 
them at least might have been so reduced by the 
terms of peace, if the defeat of the allies in one 
thousand seven hundred and twelve, and the loss 
of so many towns as the French took in that and 
the following year had been prevented, that the 
other would have been no longer formidable, 
even supposing it to have continued ; whereas I 
suppose that the tranquillity of Europe is more 
due, at this time, to want of ambition than to 
want of power on the part of France. But, to 
carry the comparison of these two measures to the 
end, it may be supposed that the Dutch would have 
taken the same part, on the queen’s declaring 
a separate peace, as they took on her declaring 
a cessation. The preparations for the campaign 
in the Low Countries were made; the Dutch, like 
the other confederates, had a just confidence in 
their own troops, and an unjust contempt for 
those of the enemy ; they were transported from 
their usual sobriety and caution by the ambitious 
prospect of large acquisitions, which had been 
opened artfully to them ^ the rest of the confede¬ 
rate army was composed of imperial and German 
troops : so that the Du tch, the Imperialists, and the 
other Germans, having an interest to decide which 
was no longer the interest of the whole confede¬ 
racy, they might have united against the queen 
in one case as they did in the other, and the 
mischief that followed to them and the common 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


5*8 

cause might not have been prevented. This 
might have been the case, no doubt. They might 
have flattered themselves that they should be 
able to break into France, and to force Philip, by 
the distress brought on his grandfather, to resign 
the crown of Spain to the emperor, even after 
Great Britain and Portugal, and Savoy too per¬ 
haps, were drawn out of the war 5 for these 
princes desired as little as the queen to see the 
Spanish crown on the emperor’s head. But, even 
in this case, though the madness would have 
been greater, the effect would not have been 
worse: the queen would have been able to serve 
these confederates as well by being mediator in 
the negociations, as they left it in her power to 
do by being a party in them; and Great Britain 
would have had the advantage of being delivered 
so much sooner from a burden, which whimsical 
and wicked politics had imposed and continued 
upon her till it was become intolerable. Of these 
two measures, at the time when we might have 
taken either, there were persons who thought 
the last preferable to the former; but it never 
came into public debate: indeed it never could; 
too much time having been lost in waiting for 
the option of Philip, and the suspension and 
cessation having been brought before the council 
rather as a measure taken, than a matter to be 
debated. If your lordship, or any one else, 
should judge, that, in such circumstances as 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 


329 

those of the confederacy in the beginning of one 
thousand seven hundred and twelve, the latter 
measure ought to have been taken, and the 
gordian knot to have been cut, rather than to 
suffer a mock treaty to languish on with so much 
advantage to the French as the disunion of the 
allies gave them ; in short, if slowness, perplexity, 
inconsistency, and indecision should be objected, 
in some instances, to the queen’s councils at that 
time • if it should be said particularly, that she 
did not observe the precise moment when the 
conduct of the league formed against her, being 
exposed to mankind, would have justified any 
part she should have taken, (though she declared, 
soon after the moment was passed, that this con¬ 
duct had set her free from all her engagements,) 
and when she ought to have taken that of drawing 
fcy one bold measure her allies out of the war, 
or herself out of the confederacy, before she lost 
her influence on France; if all this should be 
objected, yet would the proofs brought to support 
these objections show, that we were better allies 
than politicians ; that the desire the queen bad to 
treat in concert with her confederates, and the reso¬ 
lution she took not to sign without them, made 
her bear what no crowned head had ever borne 
before; and that where she erred, she erred prin¬ 
cipally by the patience, the compliance, and the 
condescension she exercised towards them, and 
towards her own subjects in league with them* 


55o HISTORY OF EtTROFE. 

Such objections as these may lie to the queen’s 
conduct, in the course of this great affair ; as well 
as objections of human infirmity to that of those 
persons employed by her in the transactions of it; 
from which neither those who proceded, nor 
those who succeeded, have, I presume, been free; 
but the principles on which they preceeded were 
honest, the means they used were lawful, and 
the event they proposed to bring about was just; 
whereas the very foundation of all the opposition 
to the peace was laid in injustice and folly : for 
what could be more unjust, than the attempt of 
the Dutch and the Germans to force the queen 
to continue a war for their private interest and 
ambition, the disproportionate expense of which 
oppressed the commerce of her subjects, and 
loaded them with debts for ages yet to come ?—- 
a war, the object of which was so changed, that 
from the year one thousand seven hundred and 
eleven, she made it not only without any engage¬ 
ment, but against her own and the common 
interest? What could be more foolish—you will 
think that I soften the term too much, and you 
will be in the right to think so —what could be 
more foolish, than the attempt of a party in 
Britain, to protract a war so ruinous to their 
country, without any reason that they durst 
avow, except that of wreaking the resentments 
of Europe on France, and that of uniting the 
Imperial and Spanish crowns on an Austrian 


HISTORY OP EUROPE. 531 

head ? one of which was to purchase revenge at 
a price too dear, and the other was to expose the 
liberties of Europe to new dangers, by the con¬ 
clusion of a war which had been made to assert 
and secure them. 

I have dwelt the longer on the conduct of those 
who promoted, and of those who opposed the 
negociations of the peace made at Utrecht, and on 
the comparison of the measure pursued by the 
queen with that which she might have pursued, 
because the great benefit we ought to reap from 
the study of history, cannot be reaped unless we 
accustom ourselves to compare the conduct of dif¬ 
ferent governments and different parties in the 
same conjunctures, and to observe the measures 
they did pursue, and the measures they might 
have pursued, with the actual consequences that 
followed one, and the possible or probable con¬ 
sequences that might have followed the other: 
by this exercise of the mind, the study of history 
anticipates, as it were, experience, as I have ob¬ 
served in one of the first of these letters, and pre¬ 
pares us for action. If this consideration should 
not plead a sufficient excuse for my prolixity on 
this head, I have one more to add that may. A 
rage of warring possessed a party in our nation 
till the death of the late queen ; a rage of nego¬ 
tiating has possessed the same party of men ever 
since. You have seen the consequences of one ; 
you see actually those of the other. The rage of 


532 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

warring confirmed the beggary of our nation, 
which began as early as the revolution ; but then 
it gave, in the last war, reputation to our arms 
and our councils too. For though I think, and 
must always think, that the principle on which 
we acted, after departing from that laid down in 
the grand alliance of one thousand seven hundred 
and one, was wrong ; yet must we confess that it 
was pursued wisely as well as boldly. The rage 
of negociating has been a chargeable rage likewise, 
at least as chargeable in its proportion. Far from 
paying our debts, contracted in war, they con¬ 
tinue much the same, after three-and-twenty 
years of peace. The taxes that oppress our mer¬ 
cantile interest the most are still in mortgage; and 
those that oppress the landed interest the most, 
instead of being laid on extraordinary occasions, 
are become the ordinary funds for the current 
service of every year. This is grievous, and the 
more so to any man, who has the honor of his 
country as well as her prosperity at heart; be¬ 
cause we have not, in this case, the airy conso¬ 
lation we had in the other. The rage of nego- 
dating began twenty years ago, under pretence 
of consummating the treaty of Utrecht; and, from 
that time to this, our ministers have been in one 
perpetual maze : they have made themselves 
and us often objects of aversion to the powers 
on the continent, and we are become at last ob¬ 
jects of contempt, even to the Spaniards. What 


HISTORY OP EUROPE, 355 

Ollier effect could our absurd conduct have? 
what other return has it deserved ? We came 
exhausted out of long wars * and, instead of pur¬ 
suing the measures necessary to give us means 
and opportunity to repair our strength and to 
diminish our burdens, our ministers have acted, 
from that time to this, like men who sought 
pretences to keep the nation in the same ex¬ 
hausted condition and under the same load of 
debt. This may have been their view perhaps ; 
and we could not be surprised if we heard the 
same men declare national poverty necessary to 
support the present government, who have so 
frequently declared corruption and a standing 
army to be so. Your good sense, my lord, your 
virtue, and your love of your country, will always 
determine you to oppose such vile schemes, and 
to contribute your utmost towards the cure of 
both these kinds of rage; the rage of warring, 
without any proportionable interest of our own, 
for the ambition of others; and the rage of nego- 
* ciating, on every occasion, at any rate, without a 
sufficient call to it, and without any part of that 
deciding influence which we ought to have. Our 
nation inhabits an island, and is one of the prin¬ 
cipal nations of Europe; but, to maintain this 
rank, we must take the advantages of this situa¬ 
tion, which have been neglected by r us for almost 
half a century; we must always remember that 
we are not part of the continent, but we must 


534 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 

never forget that we are neighbours to it. I will 
conclude, by applying a rule, that Horace gives 
for the conduct of an epic or dramatic poem, to 
the part Great Britain ought to take in the affairs 
of the continent, if you allow me to transform 
Britannia into a male divinity, as the verse 
requires. 

Nec Deus iiitersit, nisi dignus vindice norlus 

Incident. 

If these reflections are just, and I should not 
have offered them to your lordship had they not 
appeared both just and important to my best un¬ 
derstanding, you will think that I have not spent 
your time unprofitablyin making them, and ex¬ 
citing you by them to examine the true interest 
of your country relativelyTo foreign affairs$ and 
to compare it with those principles of conduct, 
that, I am persuaded, have no other foundation 
than party-designs, prejudices, and habits ; the 
private interest of some men, and the ignorance 
and rashness of others. 

My letter is grown so long, that I shall say 
nothing to your lordship, at this time, concern¬ 
ing the study of modern history relatively to the 
interests of your country in domestic affairs; 
and I think there will be no need to do so 
at any other. The History of the Rebellion by 
your great grandfather, and his private memo¬ 
rials which your lordship has in manuscript, 


HISTORY OF EUROPE; 535 

will guide you surely as far as they go: where 
they leave you, your lordship must not expect 
any history; for we have more reason to make 
this complaint, u abest enim historia literis nos~ 
tris than Tully had to put it into the mouth 
of Atticus, in his first book of laws. But where 
history leaves you, it is wanted least; the tradi¬ 
tions of this century, and of the latter end of the 
last, are fresh ; many who were actors in some 
of these events are alive, and many who have 
conversed with those that were actors in others; 
the public is in possession of several collections 
and memorials, and several there are in private 
hands. You will want no materials to form true 
notions of transactions so recent: even pam¬ 
phlets, wrote on different sides and on different 
occasions in our party disputes, and histories of 
no more authority than pamphlets, will help you 
to come at truth. Read them with suspicion, my 
lord, for they deserve to be suspected : pay no 
regard to the epithets given, nor to the judg¬ 
ments passed; neglect all declamation ; weigh the 
reasoning, and advert to fact: with such precau¬ 
tions, even Burnet’s history may be of some use. 
In a word, your lordship will want no help of 
mine to discover by what progression the whole 
Constitution of our country, and even the cha¬ 
racter of our nation, has been altered; nor how 
much a worse use, in a national sense, though a 
better in the sense of party politics, the men 


556 


HISTORY OF EUROPE, 


called Wliigs have made of long wars and ne\tf 
systems of revenue, since the revolution; than 
the men cajled Tories made, before it, of long 
peace and stale prerogative. When you look 
back three or four generations ago, you will see 
that the English were a plain, perhaps a rough, 
hut a good-natured hospitable people, jealous of 
their liberties, and able as well as ready to defend 
them, with their tongues, their pens, and their 
swords. The restoration began to turn hospi¬ 
tality into luxury, pleasure into debauch^ and 
country peers and country commoners into cour¬ 
tiers and men of mode. But whilst our luxury 
was young, it was little more than elegance; the 
debauch of that age was enlivened with wit, and 
varnished over with gallantry. The courtiers 
and the men of mode knew what the constitution 
was, respected it, and often asserted it : arts 
and sciences flourished; and, if we grew more 
trivial, we were not become either grossly igno- 
rant or openly profligate. Since the revolution, 
our kings have been reduced indeed to a seem¬ 
ing annual dependance on parliament; but the 
business of parliament, which was esteemed in 
general a duty before, has been exercised in ge¬ 
neral as a trade since. The trade of parliament, 
and the trade of funds, have grown universal. 
Men who stood forward in the world have 
attended to little else. The frequency of par¬ 
liaments, that increased their importance and 


HISTORY OF EUROPE; 537 

should have increased the respect of them, has 
taken off from their dignity • and the spirit that 
prevailed, whilst the service in them was duty, 
lias been debased since it became a trade. Few 
know, and scarce any respect, the British consti¬ 
tution ; that of the church has been long since 
derided • that of the state as long neglected ; and 
both have been left at the mercy of the men in 
power, whoever those men were. Thus the 
Church, at least the hierarchy, however sacred 
in its origin or wise in its institution, is become 
an useless burden on the state: and the state is 

s 

Become, under ancient and known forms, a new 
and undefinable monster; composed of a king 
without monarchical splendor, a senate of no- 
Bles without aristocratical independency, and a 
senate of commons without deniocratical freedom. 
Iri the mean time, my lord, the very idea of why 
and all that can be called taste, has been lost 
among the great; arts and sciences are scarcei 
alive ; luxury has been increased but not refined; 
corruption has been established, and is avowed. 
'When governments are worn out, thus it is: the 
decay appears in every instance : public and pri¬ 
vate virtue, public and private spirit, science and 
wit, decline all together. 

That you, my lord, may have a long and glo¬ 
rious share in restoring all these, and in draw¬ 
ing our government back to the true principles 
of it. I wish most heartily. Whatever errors I 

% 




558 


History of europe. 


may have committed in public life, I have always 
loved my country : whatever faults may be ob* 
jected to me in private life, I have always loved 
lay friend : whatever usage I have received from 
my country, it shall never make me break with 
her : whatever usage I have received from my 
friends, I never shall break with one of them, 
while I think him a friend to my country. These 
are the sentiments of my heart. I know they are 
those of your lordship’s: and' a communion of 
such sentiments is a tie that will engage me to 
be, as long as I live, 

1 *, My Lord, 

» 1 * 

S our most faithful servant. 














a plan 


roR 

A GENERAL HISTORY GF EUROPE 


LETTER L 


* f ■ 

I shAll take the liberty of writing to you a 
little oftener than the three or four times a 
year, which, you tell me, are all you can allow 
yourself to write to those you like best: and yet 
I declare to you with great truth, that you never 
knew me so busy in your life as I am at present. 
You must not imagine, from hence, that I am 
Writing memoirs of myself: the subject is too 
slight to descend to posterity, in any other 
manner, than by that occasional mention which 
may be made of any little actor in the history 
of our age. Sylla, Cassar, and others of that 
rank, were, whilst they lived, at the head of 
mankind: their story was in some sort the story 
of the world; and as such, might very properly 
be transmitted under their names to future gene¬ 
rations. But for those who. have acted much 
inferior parts, if they publish the piece, and call 

Z 2 

' ■' r« 


54d I’LAN t'OR A GENERAL 

it after their own names, they are impertinent^ 
if they publish only their own share in it, they 
inform mankind by halves, and neither give 
much instruction, nor create much attention. 
France abounds with writers of this sort, and, 
I think, we fall into the other extreme. Let 
me tell you, on this occasion, what has some¬ 
times come into my thoughts. 

There is hardly any century in history which 
began by opening so great a scene, as the century 
wherein we live, and shall, I suppose, die. Com¬ 
pare it with others, even the most famous, and 
you will think so. I will sketch the two last, to 
help your memory. 

The loss of that balance which Laurence of 
Medicis had preserved, during his time, in Italy; 
the expedition of Charles the eighth to Naples; 
the intrigues of the duke of Milan, who spun, 
with all the refinements of art, that net wherein 
he was taken at last himself; the successful dex¬ 
terity of Ferdinand the Catholic, who built one 
pillar of the Austrian greatness in Spain, in Italy, 
and in the Indies,—as the succession of the house 
of Burgundy, joined to the Imperial dignity and 
the hereditary countries, established another in 
the upper and lower Germany: these causes, and 
many others, combined to form a very extraor-* 
dinary conjuncture; and, by their consequences, 
to render the sixteenth century fruitful of great 
events and of aslohishing revolutions. 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 341 

Tlie beginning of the seventeenth opened still 
a greater and more important scene. The Spanish 
yoke was well-nigh imposed on Italy by the 
famous triumvirate, Toledo at Milan, Ossuna at 
Naples, and La Cueva at Venice. The distrac¬ 
tions of France, as well as the state-policy of the 
queen mother, seduced by Rome and amused by 
Spain; the despicable character of our James the 
first, the rashness of the elector Palatine, the 
bad intelligence of the princes and states of the 
league in Germany, the mercenary temper of 
John George of Saxony, and the great qualities 
of Maximilian of Bavaria, raised Ferdinand the 
second to the imperial throne; when, the males 
of the elder branch of the Austrian family in 
Germany being extinguished at the death of 
Matthias, nothing was more desirable, nor per¬ 
haps more practicable, than to throw the empire 
into another house. Germany ran the same 
risk as Italy had done: Ferdinand seemed 
more likely, even than Charles the fifth had 
been, to become absolute master; and if France 
had not furnished the greatest minister, and the 
North the greatest captain, of that age, in the 
same point of time, Vienna and Madrid would 
have given the law to the western world. 

As the Austrian scale sunk, that of Bourbon 
rose. The true date of the rise of that power, 
which has made the kings of France so consi¬ 
derable in Europe, goes up as. high as Charles tho 


542 PLAN FOR A GENERAL 

seventh, and Lewis the eleventh. The weakness 
of our Henry the sixth, the loose conduct ol 
Edward the fourth, and perhaps the oversights 
of Henry the seventh, helped very much to knit 
that monarchy together, as well as to enlarge it. 
'Advantage might have been taken of the divisions 
which religion occasioned; and supporting the 
protestant party in France would have kept that 
crown under restraints, and under inabilities, in 
some measure equal to those which were occa¬ 
sioned anciently by the vast alienations of its 
demesnes, and, by the exorbitant power of its 
vassals. But James the first was incapable of 
thinking with sense or acting with spirit. Charles 
the first had an imperfect glimpse of his true 
interest, but his uxorious temper and the ex¬ 
travagancy of that madman Buckingham gave 
Richelieu time to finish a great part of his pro¬ 
ject; and the miseries, that followed in England, 
gave Mazarine time and opportunity to complete 
the system. The last great act of this cardinal’s 
administration was the Pyrenean treaty. 

Here I would begin, by representing the face 
of Europe such as it was at that epocha, the 
interests and the conduct of England, France, 
Spain, Holland, and the empire. A summary 
recapitulation should follow of all the steps 
taken by France, during more than twenty years, 
to arrive at the great object she had proposed 
to herself in making this treaty : the most solemn 


HISTORY OF EUROPEt 


545 , 

article of which the minister, who negociated it,, 
designed should be violated ; as appears by his 
letters, wrote from the Island of Pheasants, if I 
mistake not. After this, another draught of 
Europe should have its place, according to the 
relations which the several powers stood in one 
towards another, in one thousand six hundred 
and eighty-eight; and the alterations which the 
revolution in England made in the politics of 
Europe. A summary account should follow of 
the events of the war that ended in one thousand 
six hundred and ninety-seven, with the different 
views of king William the third and Lewis the 
fourteenth, in making the peace of Ryswic; 
which matter has been much canvassed, and is 
little understood. Then the dispositions made 
by the partition treaties, and the influences and 
consequences of these treaties; and a third draught 
of the state of Europe at the death of Charles the 
second, of Spain. All this would make the subject 
of one or two books, and would be the most pro¬ 
per introduction imaginable to an history of that 
war with which our century began, and of the 
peace which followed. 

This war, foreseen for above half a century^ 
had been, during all that time, the great and 
constant object of the councils of Europe. The 
prize to be contended for was the richest that 
ever had been staked, since those of the Persian.; 
and Romsqi empires. The union of two powers^. 



544 PLAN FOR A GENERAL 

t** 1 

which separately, and in opposition, had aimed 
at universal monarchy, was apprehended. The 
confederates therefore engaged in it, to maintain 
a balance between the two houses of Austria and 
Bourbon, in order to preserve their security and 
to assert their independence. Bat with the 
success of the war they changed their views: 
and, if ambition began it on the side of France, 
ambition continued it on the other. The battles, 
the sieges, the surprising revolutions, which hap¬ 
pened in the course of this war, are not to be 
paralleled in any period of the same compass. 
The motives and the measures by which it] was 
protracted, the true reasons why it ended in a 
manner which appeared not proportionable to 
its success, and the new political state into which. 
Europe was thrown by the treaties of Utrecht 
and Baden, are subjects on which few persons 
have the necessary informations, and yet every 
one speaks with assurance and even with passion. 
I think I could speak on them with some know¬ 
ledge, and with as much indifference as Polybius 
does of the negociations of his father Lycortas, 
even in those points where I was myself an 

actor. 

\ . 

I will even confess to you, that I should not 
despair of performing this part better than the 
former. There is nothing in my opinion so hard 
to execute, as those political maps, if you will 
allow me such an expression, and those systems 


HISTORY OF EUROPE. 545 

of hints rather than relations of events, which 
are necessary to connect and explain them; and 
which must be so concise and yet so full,—so 
complicate and yet so clear. \ know nothing of 
this sort well done by the ancients. Sallust’s 
introduction, as well as that of Thucydides, might 
serve almost for any other piece of the Roman or 
Greek story, as well as for those which these two 
great authors chose. Polybius does not come up, 
in his introduction, to this idea neither. Among 
the moderns, the first book of Machiavel’s History 
of Florence is a noble original of this kind; and 
perhaps Father Paul’s History of Benefices, is, in 
the same kind of composition, inimitable. 

These are a few of those thoughts, which come 
into my mind when I consider how incumbent 
it is on every man, that he should be able to give 
an account even of his leisure; and, in the midst; 
of solitude, be of some use to society. 

I know not whether I shall have courage enough 
to undertake the task I have chalked out: I dis¬ 
trust my abilities with reason, and I shall want 
several informations not easy, I doubt, for me to 
obtain. But, in all events, it will not be possible 
for me to go about it this year; the reasons of 
which would be long enough to fill another 
letter, and I doubt that you will think this grown 
too bulky already.—Adieu. 








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retirement and study. 

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OF 


THE TRUE USE 

Of- 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY: 

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD BATHUllST. 


LETTER II. 


SINCE my last to your lordship, this is the 
first favorable opportunity I have had of keeping 
the promise I made you. I will avoid prolixity, 
as much as I can, in the first draught of my 
thoughts; hut I must give you them as they 
rise in my mind, without staying to marshal 
them in close order. 

As proud as we are of human reason, nothing 
can be more absurd than the general system of 
human life and human knowledge. This fa-, 
culty of distinguishing true from false, right 


548 RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

from wrong, and what is agreeable from what is 
repugnant to nature, either by one act or by 
a longer process of intuition, has not been given 
with so sparing a hand as many appearances 
would make us apt to believe. If it was cul¬ 
tivated, therefore, as early, and as carefully as 
it might be, and if the exercise of it was left 
generally as free as it ought to be, our common 
notions and opinions would be more consonant 
to truth than they are; and, truth being but 
one, they would be more uniform likewise. 

But this rightful mistress of human life and 
knowledge, whose proper office it is to preside 
over both, and to direct us in the conduct of 
one and the pursuit of the other, becomes de¬ 
graded in the intellectual economy. She is, 
reduced to a mean and servile state, to the vile 
drudgery of conniving at principles, defending 
opinions, and confirming habits, that are none 
of hers. They, who do her most honor, who 
consult her oftenest, and obey her too very 
often, are still guilty of limiting her authority 
according to maxims, and rules, and schemes, 
that chance, or ignorance, or interest, first devised, 
and that custom sanctifies—-custom, that result of 
the passions and prejudices of many, and of the 
designs of a few—-that ape of reason, who usurps 
her seat, exercises her power, and is obeyed by 
mankind in her stead. Men find it easy, and 
government makes it profitable to concur in 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 




34g 

established systems of speculation and practice: 
and the whole turn of education prepares them 
to live upon credit all their lives. Much pains 
are taken and time bestowed, to teach us what 
to think; but little or none of either, to instruct 
us how to think. The magazine of the memory 
is stored and stuffed betimes; but the conduct of 
the understanding is all along neglected, and the 
free exercise of it is, in effect, forbid in all places, 
and in terms in some. 

There is a strange distrust of human reason 
in every human institution: this distrust is so 
apparent, that an habitual submission to some 
authority or other is forming in us from our 
cradles; that principles of reasoning and matters 
of fact are inculcated in our tender minds, before 
we are able to express that reason; and that, when 
we are able to exercise it, we are either forbid 
or frightened from doing so, even on things that 
are themselves the proper objects of reason, or 
that are delivered to us upon an authority whose 
sufficiency or insufficiency is so most evidently. 

On many subjects, such as the general laws of 
natural religion, and the general rules of society 
and good policy, men of all countries and lan¬ 
guages, who cultivate their reason, judge alike* 
The same premises have led them to the same 
conclusions; and so, following the same guide, 
they have trod in the same path : at least, the 
differences are small, easily reconciled, and such 







55d RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

as could not of themselves, contradistinguish 
nation from nation, religion from religion, and 
sect from sect. How comes it then, that there 
are other points, on which the most opposite 
opinions are entertained; and some of these with 
so much heat and fury, that the men on one 
side of the hedge will die for the affirmative, and 
the men on the other for the negative ? “ Toute 

opinion est assez forte pour se fair a epouser au 
prix de la vie f says Montaigne, whom I often 
quote, as I do Seneca, rather for the smartness of 
expression, than the Weight or newness of matter. 
Look narrowly into it, and you will hnd that the 
points agreed on and the points disputed are not 
proportionable to the common sense and general 
reason of mankind. Nature and truth are the 
same every where, and reason shows them every 
where alike. But the accidental and other causes, 
which give rise and growth to opinions both in 
speculation and practice, are of infinite variety; 
and wherever these opinions are once confirmed 
by custom and propagated by education, various, 
inconsistent, contradictory as they are, they all 
pretend—and all their pretences are backed by 
pride, by passion, and by interest—to have reason, 
or revelation, or both, on their side; though 
neither reason nor revelation can be possibly on 
the side of more than one, and may be possibly 
on the side of none. 

Thus it happens that the people of Thibet are 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 55 1 

Tartars and idolaters; that they are Turks and 
Mahometans at Constantinople;—Italians and 
Papists at Rome; and how much soever education 
may be less confined, and the means of knowledge 
more attainable, in France and our own country, 
yet thus it happens in great measure that French¬ 
men and Roman Catholics are bred at Paris, and 
Englishmen and Protestants at London: for men, 
indeed, properly speaking, are bred no where; 
every one thinks the system, as he speaks the 
language, of his country, at least there are few 
that think, and none that act, in any country, 
according to the dictates of pure unbiassed reason; 
unless they may be said to do so, when reason 
directs them to speak and act according to the 
system of their country or sect, at the same time 
as she leads them to think according to that of 
nature and truth. 

Thus the far greatest part of mankind appears 
reduced to a lower state than other animals, in 
that very respect, on account of which we claim 
so great superiority over them; because instinct, 
that has its due effect, is preferable to reason that 
has not. I suppose in this place, with philo¬ 
sophers, and the vulgar, that which I am in no 
wise ready to affirm, that other animals have no 
share of human reason: for, let me say by the 
way, it is much more likely other animals should 
share the human, which is denied, than that man 
should share the divine reason, which is affirmed. 


551 retirement and study-. 

But, supposing out monopoly of reason, would 
not your lordship choose to walk upon four legs, 
to wear a long tail, and to be called a beast, with 
the advantage of being determined by irresistible 
and unerring instinct to those truths that are ne¬ 
cessary to your well-being ; rather than to walk 
on two legs, to Wear no tail, and to be honored 
with the title of man, at the expense of deviating 
from them perpetually ? Instinct acts sponta¬ 
neously whenever its action is necessary, and 
directs the animal according to the purpose for 
which it was implanted in him. Reason is a no¬ 
bler and more extensive faculty; for it extends 
to the unnecessary as well as necessary, and to 
satisfy our curiosity as well as our wants : but 
reason must be excited* or she will conduct us 
wrong, and carry us farther astray from her own 
precincts than we should go without her help; 
in the first case, we have no sufficient guide; and 
in the second, the more we employ our reason, 
the more unreasonable we are. 

Now if all this be so; if reason has so little, and 
ignorance, passion, interest, and custom so much 
to do, in forming our opinions and our habits, 
and in directing the whole conduct of human 
life; is it not a thing desirable by every think¬ 
ing man, to have the opportunity, indulged to so 
few by the course of accidents, the opportunity 
“ secum esse , et securn vivere ,” of living some 
years at least to ourselves and for ourselves, in 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 55$ 

<l state of freedom, under the laws of reason, 
instead of passing our whole time in a state of 
vassalage under those of authority and custom? 
Is it not worth our while to contemplate our¬ 
selves, and others, and all the things of this 
world, once before we leave them, through the me¬ 
dium of pure, and, if I may say so, of undefiled 
reason ? Is it not worth our while to approve or 
condemn, on our own authority, what we receive 
in the beginning of life on the authority of oilier 
men, who were not then better able to judge for 
us than we are now to judge for ourselves ? 

That this may be done, and has been done to 
some degree, by men who remained much more 
mingled than I design to be for the future in the 
company and business of the world, I shall not 
deny: but still it is better done in retreat, and 
with greater ease and pleasure. Whilst we re¬ 
main in the world, we are all fettered down, 
more or less, to one common level, and have 
neither all the leisure nor all the means and 
advantages to soar above it, which we may pro¬ 
cure to ourselves, by breaking these fetters in 
retreat. To talk of abstracting ourselves from 
matter, laying aside body, and being resolved, 
as it were, into pure intellect, is proud, meta- 
physical, unmeaning jargon; but to abstract our¬ 
selves from the prejudices, and habits, and plea¬ 
sures, and business of the world, is no more than 
many are, though all are not, capable of doing. 



554 retirement and sftri)¥. 

They who can do this, may elevate their souls 
in retreat to an higher station, and may take 
from thence such a view of the world, as the 
second Scipio took in his dream from the seats 
of the blessed, when the whole earth appeared 
so little to him that he could scarce discern 
that speck of dirt— the Roman empire ! Such a 
view as this will increase our knowledge by 
showing us our ignorance; will distinguish every 
degree of probability from the lowest to the 
highest, and mark the distance between that and 
certainty; will dispel the intoxicating fumes of 
philosophical presumption, and teach us to esta¬ 
blish our peace of mind, where alone it can rest 
securely, in resignation : in short, such a view will 
render life more agreeable, and death less terrible. 
Is not this business, my lord ? Is not this pleasure, 
too,—the highest pleasure ? The world can afford 
us none such; we must retire from the world to 
taste it with a full gust; but we shall taste it the 
better for having been in the world. The share 
of sensual pleasures, that a man of my age can 
promise himself, is hardly worth attention: he 
should be sated; he will be soon disabled; and 
very little reflection, surely, will suffice to make 
his habits of this kind lose their power over him, 
in proportion, at least, as his power of indulging 
them diminishes. Besides, your lordship knows 
that my schemes of retirement excludes none of 
these pleasures that can be taken with decency 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 555 

* ’ y 

and conveniency; and to say the truth, I believe 
that I allow myself more in speculation, than I 
shall find I want in practice. As to the habits 
of business, they can have no hold on one who 
lias been so long tired with it. You may object, 
that though a man has discarded these habits, and 
lias not even the embers of ambition about him 
to revive them, yet he cannot renounce all public 
business as absolutely as I seem to do; because 
a better principle, a principle of duty, may sum¬ 
mon him to the service of his country. I will 
answer you with great sincerity. No man has 
higher notions of this duty than I have; I think 
that scarce any age or circumstances can dis¬ 
charge us entirely from it;—no, not my own. 
But as we are apt to take the impulse of our own 
passions for a call to the performance of this duty* 
so when these passions impel us no longer, the 
call that puts us upon action must be real, and 
loud too : add to this, that there ai^e different 
methods, proportioned to different circumstances 
and situations, of performing the same duty. In 
the midst of retreat, wherever it may be fixed, 
I may contribute to defend and preserve the 
British constitution of government; and you, 
my lord, may depend upon me, that whenever 
I can, I will. Should any one ask you, in 
this case, from whom I expect my reward ? 
answer him by declaring to whom I pay this 
service; ^ D&q iimriovtcili , tub non ctccipcj & 

Aa 2 



556 ftETliySMENf An£> STUB!*. 

modo hcec a majoribus voluit> sed etiam posteris 
proderef > 

But, to lead the life I propose with satisfaction 
and profit, renouncing the pleasures and busi¬ 
ness of the world, and breaking the habits of 
both, is not sufficient: the supine creature, whose 
understanding is superficially employed through 
life about a few general notions, and is never 
bent to a close and steady pursuit of truth, may 
renounce the pleasures and business of the 
World,-^for even in the business of the world we 
see such creatures often employed,—-and may 
break the habits; nay, he may retire, and drone 
away life in solitude like a monk, or like him 
over the door of whose house, as if his house had 
been his tomb, somebody wrote, “ Here lies such 
an one.” But no such man will be able to make 
the true use of retirement. The employment of 
his mind, that would have been agreeable and 
easy if he had accustomed himself to it early, will 
be unpleasant and impracticable late : such men 
lose their intellectual powers for the want of 
exerting them, and, having trifled away youth, 
are reduced to the necessity of trifling away age. 
It fares with the mind just as it does with the 
body. He, who was born with a texture of brain 
as strong as that of Newton, may become unable 
to perform the common rules of arithmetic : just 
as he, who has the same elasticity in his muscles, 
the same suppleness in his joints, and all his 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 


V* f* 

DO 7 

nerves and sinews as well braced, as Jacob Hall,, 
may become a fat unwieldy sluggard. Yet far¬ 
ther, the implicit creature, who has thought it 
all his life needless or unlawful to examine the 
principles or facts that he took originally on trust, 
will be as little able as the other to improve his 
solitude to any good purpose : unless we call it a 
good purpose, for that sometimes happens, to 
confirm and exalt his prejudices, so that he may 
live and die in one continued delirium. The com 
firmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard 
to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent 
life ; and as some must trifle away age because 
they have trifled away youth, others must labor 
on in a maze of error, because they have wan¬ 
dered there too long to find their way out. 

There is a prejudice in China in favor of 
little feet; and therefore the feet of girls are 
swathed and bound up from the cradle; so that 
the women of that country are unable to walk, 
without tottering and stumbling, all their lives* 
Among the savages of America, there are some 
who hold flat heads and long ears in great esteem, 
and therefore press the one, and draw down the 
others so hard from their infancy, that they destroy 
irrecoverably the true proportions of nature, and 
continue ail their lives ridiculous to every sight 
but their own. Just so, the first of these characters 
cannot make any progress, and the second will not 
attempt to make any, in an impartial search aftei 
real kuowledge. 


558 RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

To set about acquiring the habits of meditation 
and study late in life, is like getting into a go-cart 
with a grey beard, and learning to walk when we 
have lost the use of our legs. In general the 
foundations of an happy old age must be laid in 
youth ; and in particular he who has not culti¬ 
vated his reason young, will be utterly unable 
to improve it old. Manent ingerda senibus y 
moclo permaneant stadium et industria. 

' Not only a love of study and a desire of know¬ 
ledge must have grown up with us, but such an 
industrious application likewise, as requires the 
whole vigour of the mind to be exerted in the 
pursuit of truth, through long trains of ideas, 
and all those dark recesses wherein man, not 
God, has hid it. 

Th is love and this desire I have felt all my life, 
and I am not quite a stranger to this industry 
and application. There has been something al¬ 
ways ready to whisper in my ear, whilst I ran 
the course of pleasure and of business,— 

Solve senescentem mature sanus equum \ 

but my genius, unlike the demon of Socrates* 
whispered so softly, that very often I heard him 
not, in the hurry of those passions by which 
I was transported. Some calmer hours there 
were ; in them I hearkened to him: reflection 
had often its turn, and the love of study and the 




. RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 55<J 

desire of knowledge have never quite abandoned 
me. I am not, therefore, entirely unprepared for 
the life I will lead; and it is not without reason 
that I promise myself more satisfaction in the 
latter part of it, than I ever knew in the former. 

Your lordship may think this perhaps a little 
too sanguine, for one who has lost so much time 
already : you may put me in mind, that human 
life has no second spring, no second summer : 
you may ask me what I mean by sowing in au¬ 
tumn, and whether I hope to reap in winter? My 
answer will be, that I think very differently from 
most men of the time we have to pass and the 
business we have to do in this world: I think we 
have more of one, and less of the other, than is 
commonly supposed. Our want of time, and the 
shortness of human life, are some of the princi¬ 
pal common-place complaints, which we prefer 
against the established order of things: they are 
the grumblings of the vulgar, and the pathetic 
lamentations of the philosopher* but they are 
impertinent and impious in both. The man of 
business despises the man of pleasure for squan¬ 
dering his time away; the man of pleasure pities 
or laughs at the man of business, for the same 
thing; and yet both concur superciliously and 
absurdly to find fault with the Supreme Being, 
for having given them so little time. The phi¬ 
losopher, who mispends it very often as much 
as the others, joins in the same cry, and author 

y ' 

i > 


y 


5Go RETIREMENT AND STUDY* 

rises this impiety. Theophrastus thought it ex¬ 
tremely hard to die at ninety, and to go out of 
the world when he had just learned how to live 
in it;—his master, Aristotle, found fault with na¬ 
ture for treating man in this respect worse than 
several other animals: both very unphilosophi- 
eally! and I love Seneca the better, for his quarrel 
with the Slagirite on this head. We see, in so 
many instances, a just proportion of things, ac¬ 
cording to their seyeral relations to one another, 
that philosophy should lead us to conclude this 
proportion preserved, even where we cannot dis¬ 
cern it; instead of leading us to conclude that it 
is not preserved where we do not discern it, or 
where we think that we see the contrary. To 
conclude otherwise is shocking presumption: it 
is to presume that the system of the universe 
would have been more wisely contrived, if crea¬ 
tures of our low rank among intellectual natures 
had been called to the councils of the Most High; 
pr that the Creator ought to mend his work by the 
advice of the creature. That life which seems to 
our self-love so short, when we compare it with 
the ideas we frame of eternity, or even with the 
duration of some other beings, will appear suf¬ 
ficient upon a less partial view, to all the ends of 
pur creation, and of a just proportion in the suc¬ 
cessive course of generations. The term itself is 
long : we render it short; and the want we 
complain of flows from our profusion, not from 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 56* 

our poverty. We are all arrant spendthrifts: 
some of us dissipate our estates on the trifles, 
some on the superfluities, and then we all com¬ 
plain that we want the necessaries of life. The 
much greatest part never reclaim, but die bank¬ 
rupts to God and man: others reclaim late ; and 
they are apt to imagine, when they make up 
their accounts and see how their fund is dimi¬ 
nished, that they have not enough remaining to 
live upon, because they have not the whole. But 
they deceive themselves : they were richer than 
they thought, and they are not yet poor: if 
they husband well the remainder, it will be 
found sufficient for all the necessaries, and for 
some of the superfluities, and trifles too perhaps., 
of life: but then the former order of expense 
must be inverted ; and the necessaries of life 
must be provided, before they put themselves 
to any cost for the trifles or superfluities. 

Let us leave the men of pleasure and of busi¬ 
ness, who are often candid enough to own that 
they throw away their time, and thereby to 
confess that they complain of the Supreme Being 
for no other reason than this, that he has not 
proportioned his bounty to their extravagance : 
let us consider the scholar and the philosopher; 
who, far from owning that he throws any time 
away, reproves, others for doing it: that solemn 
mortal, who abstains from the pleasures and 
declines the business of the world, that he may 


562 RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

dedicate his whole time to the search of truth 
and the improvement of knowledge : when 
such an one complains of the shortness of 
human life in general, or of his remaining share 
in particular, might not a man, more reasonable 
though less solemn, expostulate thus with him? 

u Your complaint is indeed consistent with 
your practice 3 but you would not possibly 
renew your complaint, if you reviewed your 
practice. Though reading makes a scholar, yet 
every scholar is not a philosopher, nor every 
philosopher a wise man. It cost you twenty 
years to devour all the volumes on one side 
of your library; you came out a great critic 
in Latin and Greek, in the oriental tongues, in 
history and chronology; but you was not satis- 
fied; you confessed that these were the literce 
nihil sanantes i and you wanted more time to 
acquire other knowledge. You have had this 
time; you have passed twenty years more on the 
other side of your library, among philosophers, 
rabbies, commentators, schoolmen, and whole 
legions of modern doctors. You are extremely 
well versed in all that has been written con¬ 
cerning the nature of God, and of the soul of 
man; about matter and form, body and spirit; 
and space, and eternal essences, and incorporeal 
substances; and the rest of those profound 
speculations. You are a master of the contro¬ 
versies that have arisen about nature and grace, 


! 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 565 

about predestination and free-will, and all the 
other abstruse questions that have made so much 
noise in the schools, and done so much hurt in 
the world. You are going on, as fast as the* 
infirmities you have contracted will permit, in 
the same course of study; but you begin to 
foresee that you shall want time, and you make 
grievous complaints of the shortness of human 
life. Give me leave, now, to ask you how many 
thousand years God must prolong your life, in 
order to reconcile you to his wisdom and good- 
ness. It is plain, at least highly probable, that 
a life as long as that of the most aged of the 
patriarchs would be too short to answer your 
purposes: since the researches and disputes in 
which you are engaged, have been already for a 
much longer time the objects of learned inquiries, 
and remain still as imperfect and undetermined 
as they were at first. But let me ask you again, 
and deceive neither yourself nor me; have you, 
in the course of these forty years, once examined 
the first principles and the fundamental facts 
on which all those questions depend, with an 
absolute indifference of judgment, and with a 
scrupulous exactness? with the same that yon 
have employed in examining the various conse¬ 
quences drawn from them, and the heterodox 
opinions about them ? Have you not taken 
them for granted, in the whole course of your 
Studies? Or, if you have looked now and 
then on the state of the proofs brought to 


364 RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

maintain them, have you not done it as a mathe¬ 
matician looks over a demonstration formerly 
made, to refresh his memory, not to satisfy any 
doubt ? If you have thus examined, it may 
appear marvellous to some, that you have spent 
so much time in many parts of those studies, 
which have reduced you to this hectic condition, 
of so much heat and weakness. But if you have 
not thus examined, it must be evident to all, 
nay to yourself on the least cool reflection, that 
you are still, notwithstanding all your learning, 
in a state of ignorance ; for knowledge can alone 
produce knowledge: and without such an exami* 
nation of axioms and facts, you can have none 
about inferences.” 

In this manner one might expostulate very 
reasonably with many a great scholar, many a 
profound philosopher, many a dogmatical casuist; 
and it serves to set the complaints about want of' 
time, and the shortness of human life, in a very 
ridiculous but a true light. All men are taught 
their opinions, at least on the most important 
subjects, by rote; and are bred to defend them with 
obstinacy. They may be taught true opinions; 
but whether true or false the same zeal for them, 
and the same attachment to them is every where 
inspired alike. The Tartar believes, as heartily, 
that the soul of Foe inhabits in his Dairo, as the 
Christian believes the hypostatic union or any 
article in the Athanasian creed. Now this may 
answer the ends of society in some respects, and 


Retirement and study. 565 

/ , i ^ 

do well enough for the vulgar of all ranks: bat 
it is not enough for the man who cultivates his 
reason, who is able to think, and who ought 
to think for himself. To such a man, every 
opinion that he has not himself either framed 
or examined strictly, and then adopted, will 
pass for nothing more than what it really is, the 
opinion of other men; which may be true or 
false for aught he knows. And this is a state of 
uncertainty, in which no such man can remain, 
With any peace of mind concerning those things 
that are of greatest importance to us here, and 
may be so hereafter* He will make them there¬ 
fore the objects of his first and greatest attention^ 
If he has lost time, he will lose no more; and 
when he has acquired all the knowledge he is 
capable of acquiring on these subjects, he will 
be the less concerned whether he has time to 
acquire any farther. Should he have passed his 
life in the pleasures or business of the world; 
whenever he sets about this work, he will soon 
have the advantage over the learned philosopher. 
For he will soon have secured what is necessary 
to his happiness, and may sit down in the peace¬ 
ful enjoyment of that knowledge : or proceed 
with greater advantage and satisfaction to the 
acquisition of new knowledge; whilst the other 
continues his search after things that are in their 
nature, to say the best of them, hypothetical, 
precarious, and superfluous. 


566 RETIREMENT AND STUDY* 

But this is not the only rule, by observing 
of which we may redeem our time and have 
the advantage over those who imagine they have 
so much in point of knowledge over your lord- 
ship or me, for instance, and who despise our 
ignorance. The rule I mean is this; to be on 
our guard against the common arts of delusion, 
spoken of already; which, every one is ready 
to confess, have been employed to mislead those 
who differ from him. Let us be diffident of 
ourselves, but let us be diffident of others too: 
our own passions may lead us to reason wrong, 
but the passions and interests of others may have 
the same effect. It is in every man’s power, who 
sets about it in good earnest, to prevent the first; 
and when he has done so, he will have a con¬ 
scious certainty of it. To prevent the last, there 
is one, and but one, sure method ; and that is, 
to remount, in the survey of our opinions, to 
the first and even remotest principles on which 
they are founded. No respect, no habit, no 
seeming certainty whatever, must divert us 
from this: any affectation of diverting us from 
it ought to increase our suspicion; and the 
more important our examination is, the more 
important this method of conducting it becomes. 
Let us not be frightened from it, either by the 
supposed difficulty or length of such an inquiry; * 
for, on the contrary, this is the easiest and the 
shortest, as well as the only sure way of arriving 
at real knowledge, and of being able to place the 


RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 567 

0 f • * m 

opinions we examine in the different classes of 
true, probable, or false, according to the truth, 
probability, or falshood of the principles from 
whence they are deduced. If we find these 
principles false, and that will be the case in 
many instances, we stop our inquiries on these 
heads at once; and save an immense deal of 
time that we should otherwise mispend. The 

Mussulman, who enters on the examination of 

* 

all the disputes that have arisen between the 
followers of Omar and Ali, and other doctors of 
his law, must acquire a thorough knowledge of 
the whole Mahometan system • and will have as 
good a right to complain of want of time, and 
the shortness of human life, as any Pagan or 
Christian divine or philosopher: but without all 
this time or learning, he might have discovered 
that Mahomet was an impostor, and that the 
Koran is an heap of absurdities. 

I11 short, my lord, he who retires from the 
world, with a resolution of employing his leisure, 
in the first place to re-examine and settle his opi¬ 
nions, is inexcusable if he does not begin with 
those that are most important to him, and if 
lie does not deal honestly by himself. To deal 
honestly by himself, hemust observe the rule 
I have insisted upon, and not suffer the delusions 
of the world to follow him into his retreat. Every 
man’s reason is every man’s oracle; this oracle is 
best consulted in the silence of retirement3 and 


568 taTIRElVfcENT AND STUDY. 

when we have so consulted, whatever the deci¬ 
sion be, whether in favor of our prejudices or 
against them, we must rest satisfied. 4 since no¬ 
thing can be more certain than this, that he who 
follows that guide in the search of truth, as that 
Was given him to lead him to it, will have a much 
better plea to make, whenever or Wherever he 
may be called to account, than he who has re¬ 
signed himself either deliberately or inadver¬ 
tently to any authority upon earth. 

When we have done this, concerning God, our¬ 
selves, and other men; concerning the relations 
in which we stand to him and to them; the duties 
that result from these relations, and the positive 
will of the Supreme Being, whether revealed to 
us in a supernatural, or discovered by the right 

use of our reason in a natural way-we have 

done the great business of our lives. Our lives are 
so sufficient for this, that they afford us time for 
more, even when we begin late : especially if we 
proceed in every other inquiry by the same rule, 
to discover error in axioms, or in first principles 
grounded on facts, is like the breaking of a charm: 
The inchanted castle, the steep rock, the burn¬ 
ing lake disappear; and the paths that lead to 
truth , which we imagined to be so long, so em¬ 
barrassed, and so difficult, show, as they are, short, 
open, and easy. When we have secured the ne¬ 
cessaries, there.may be time to amuse ourselves 
with the superfluities, and even with the triiles, 


» 



llETIUEMENT AND STUDY. 



bf life. a Dulce est desipere F said Horace Vive 
la bagatelleF says Swift. I oppose neither; not 
the Epicurean, much less the Christian philo¬ 
sopher ; hut I insist that a principal part of these 
amusements he the amusements of study and 
rellection, of reading and conversation. You 
know what conversation I mean; for we lose the 
true advantage of our nature and constitution, if 
we suffer the mind to come, as it were, to a stand. 
When the body, instead of acquiring new vigor 
and tasting new pleasures, begins to decline, 
and is sated with pleasures, or grown incapable 
of taking them, the mind may continue still to 
improve and indulge itself in new enjoyments. 
Every advance in knowledge opens a new scene 
of delight; and the joy that we feel in the actual 
possession of one, will be heightened by that 
which we expect to find in another ‘ so that 
before we can exhaust this fund of successive 
pleasures, death will come to end our pleasures 
and our pains at once. “ In his sludiis laboribus- 
que vivenliy non intelligitur quando obrepit 
senectus: ita sensim sine serisu cetas senescit y nec 
subito fraiigitar, sed diuturnitate extinguitur.” 

This, my lord, is the wisest and the most 
agreeable manner in which a man of sense can 
wind up the thread of life ; happy is he whose 
; situation and circumstances give him the oppor¬ 
tunity and means of doing it! Though he should 
jiol have made any great advances in knowledge^ 



5 JO RETIREMENT AND STUDY. 

and should set about it late, yet the task will not 
be found difficult, unless he has gone too far out 
of his way, and unless he continues too long to 
halt between the dissipations of the world and 
the leisure of a retired life : 

—Vivendi recte qui prorogat lioram, 

Rusticus expeetat dum defluat amnis; 

you know the rest. I am sensible, more sen¬ 
sible than any enemy I have, of .my natural 
infirmities and acquired disadvantages- but I 
have begun, and I will persist: for he who jogs 
forward on a battered horse, in the right way, 
may get to the end of his journey; which he 
cannot do, who gallops the fleetest courser of 
Newmarket, out of it. 

Adieu, my dear lord! Though I have much 
more to say on this subject, yet I perceive, and 
J doubt you have long perceived, that I have 
eaid too much, at least for a letter, already: the 
rest shall be reserved for conversation whenever 
We meet; and then I hope to confirm, under 
your lordship’s eye, my speculations by my 
practice. In the mean time let me refer you to 
our friend Pope: he says I made a philosopher 
of him : I am sure he has contributed verv much. 
,and I thank him for it, to the making an hermit 
of me, 


I 


. r f 

REFLECTIONS 

o .u / ■ ■ I 

■ 

i 

UPON 


EXILE, 



/ 

r 


Rb 3 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


THAT the public may not be imposed upon by any lames 
and unequal translation of the following Treatise from 
tlie French, in which language part of it has been lately 
printed and retailed in a Monthly Mercury, it is judged 
proper to add it here, at the end of this volume, front 
the author’s original manuscript, as he himself had 
finished it for the press* 



REFLECTIONS 


UPON 

- EXILE.* 

• v • g . K 

• / 1 

M DCC XVI. 

DISSIPATION of mind and length of 
time are the remedies to which the greatest part 
of mankind trust in their afflictions: but the 
first of these works a temporary, the second a 
slow, effect, and both are unworthy of a wise 
man. Are we to fly from ourselves that we may, 
fly from our misfortunes, and fondly to imagine 
that the disease is cured because we find means 
to get some moments of respite from pain ? or 
shall we expect from time, the physician of 
brutes, a lingering and uncertain deliverance? 

* Several passages of this little treatise are taken from 
Seneca, and the whole is wrote with some allusion to his 
style and manner, i( quanquam non omnino temera sit, quod 
do sententiis illius queritur Fab his" etc. Eras. Desen. jud. 





3 7 4 REFLECTION'S UPON EXILE. 

Shall we wait to be happy till we can forget that 
we are miserable, and owe to the weakness of 
our faculties a tranquillity which ought to he the 
effect of their strength? Far otherwise:—let us 
set all our past and our present afflictions at once 
before our eyes :* let us resolve to overcome 
them, instead of flying from them, or wearing 
out the sense of them by long and ignominious 
patience: instead of palliating remedies, let us 
use the incision knife and the caustic, search the 
wound to the bottom, and work an immediate 
and radical cure. 

The recalling of former misfortunes serves to 
fortify the mind against later. He must blush 
to sink under the anguish of one wound, who 
surveys a body seamed over with the scars of 
many, and who has come victorious out of all 
the conflicts wherein he received them. Let 
sighs, and tears, and fainting under the lightest 
strokes of adverse fortune, be the portion of 
those unhappy people whose tender minds a long 
course of felicity has enervated; while such, as 
have passed through years of calamity, bear up 
with a noble and immoveable constancy against 
the heaviest. Uninterrupted misery has this 
good effeet,—as it continually torments, it finally 
hardens. 

Such is the language of philosophy; and happy 


* Sen, Be con. ad lick: 



REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE* 5^5 

is the man who acquires the right of holding it: 
hut this right is not to he acquired by pathetic 
discourse,—our conduct can alone give it us; 
and, therefore, instead of presuming on our 
strength, the surest method is to confess our 
weakness, and, without loss of time, to apply 
ourselves to the study of wisdom. This was the 
advice which the oracle gave to Zeno,* and there 
is no other way of securing our tranquillity 
amidst all the accidents to which human life is 
exposed. Philosophy has, I know, her Tlirasos, 
as well, as War; and among her sons many there 
have been, who, while they aimed at being more 
than men, became something less. The means 
of preventing this danger are easy and sure. 
It is a good rule, to examine well before we 
addict ourselves to any sect: but I think it is a 
better rule, to addict ourselves to none. Let us 
hear them all, with a perfect indilferency on 
which side the truthJies; and when we come 
to determine, let nothing appear so venerable 
to us as our own understandings. Let us 
gratefully accept the help of every one who 
has endeavoured to correct the vices and 
strengthen the minds of men; but let us choose 
for ourselves, and yield universal assent to 
none. Thus, that I may instance the sect al¬ 
ready mentioned, when we have laid aside the 


* Piog. Lacii. 


*>76 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

wonderful and surprising sentences, and all the 
paradoxes of the Porticjue, we shall find in that 
school such doctrines as our unprejudised reason 
submits to with pleasure, as nature dictates, and 
as experience confirms. Without this precau¬ 
tion, we run the risk of becoming imaginary 
kings and real slaves: with it, we may learn 
to assert our native freedom and live indepen-* 
dent on fortune. 

In order to which great end, it is necessary 
that we stand watchful, as centinels, to dis-^ 
cover the secret wiles and open attacks of this 
capricious goddess, before they reach us. * 
Where she falls upon us unexpected, it is hard 
to resist; hut those who wait for her will repel 
her with ease. The sudden invasion of an 
enemy overthrows such as are not on their 
guard : but they who foresee the war, and pre¬ 
pare themselves for it before it breaks out, stand, 
without difficulty, the first and the fiercest 
onset. I learned this important lesson long ago, 
and never trusted to Fortune, even while she 
seemed to be at peace with me : the riches, the 
honors, the reputation, and all the advantages 
which her treacherous indulgence poured upon 
me, I placed so, that she might snatch them, 
away without giving me any disturbance: I kept 
a great interval between me and them; she 


* Son, De con. act Hck 



f 




REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 5jj 

took them, but she could not tear them from 
me. No man suffers by bad fortune, but he 
who has been deceived by good. If we grow 
fond of her gifts, fancy that they belong to us, 
and are perpetually to remain with us,—if we 
lean upon them, and expect to be considered 
for them,—we shall sink into all the bitterness 
of grief, as soon as these false and transitory 
benefits pass away,—as soon as our vain and 
childish minds, unfraught with solid pleasures, 
become destitute even of those which are ima¬ 
ginary. But, if we do not suffer ourselves to 
be transported by prosperity, neither shall we 
be reduced by adversity. Our souls will be of 
pr oof against the dangers of both these states: 
and, having explored our strength, we shall be 
sure of it; for in the midst of felicity, we shall 
have tried how wc can bear misfortune. 

It is much harder to examine and judge, than 
to take up opinions on trust; and therefore the 
far greatest part of the world borrow from others, 
those which they entertain concerning all the 
affairs of life and death.* Hence it proceeds 
that men are so unanimously eager in the 
pursuit of things, which, far from having any 
inherent real good, are varnished over with a 
specious and deceitful gloss, and contain nothing 


* Dura imusquisque mavult credere qnam judicarc, nun- 
quam de vita judicatur, semper creditin'.— Sen, De vita beat. 


573 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

answerable to their appearances. * Hence it 
proceeds, on the other hand, that, in those 
things which are called evils, there is nothing 
so hard and terrible as the general cry of the 
world threatens. The word exile conies indeed 
harsh to the ear, and strikes us like a melan¬ 
choly and execrable sound, through a certain 
persuasion which men have habitually con¬ 
curred in : thus the multitude has ordained; 
but the greatest part of their ordinances are 
abrogated by the wise. 

Rejecting, therefore, the judgment of those 
who determine according to popular opinions or 
the first appearances of things, let us examine 
what exile really is.f It is, then, a change of 
place; and lest you should say that I diminish 
the object, and conceal the most shocking parts 
of it, I add, that this change of place is fre¬ 
quently accompanied by some or all of the fol¬ 
lowing inconveniencies : by the loss of the estate 
which we enjoyed, and the rank which we held; 
by the loss of that consideration and power which 
we were in possession of; by a separation from 
our family and our friends; by the contempt 
which we may fall into; by the ignominy with 
which those, who have driven us abroad, will 
endeavour to sully the innocence of our characters, 
and to justify the injustice of their own conduct 

* Sen. De con. ad HeL 


i Sen. Ibid.. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 5 73 

All these shall be spoken to hereafter: in the 
mean while, let us consider what evil there is in 
change of place, abstractedly and by itself. 

To live deprived of one’s country is in¬ 
tolerable.* Is it so?—how comes it then to 
pass, that such numbers of men live out of their 
countries by choice ? Observe how the streets of 
London and of Paris are crowded. Call over 
those millions by name, and ask them one by 
one of what country they are: how many will 
you find, who, from different parts of the earth, 
come to inhabit these great cities, which afford 
the largest opportunities, and the largest en¬ 
couragement, to virtue and to vice? Some are 
drawn by ambition, and some are sent by,duty; 
many resort thither to improve their minds, and 
many to improve their fortunes; others bring 
their beauty, and others their eloquence, to 
market. Remove from hence, and go to the 
utmost extremities of the East or the West; 
visit the barbarous nations of Africa, or the 
inhospitable regions of the North: you will 
find no climate so bad, no country so savage, 
as not to have some people who come from 
abroad, and inhabit there by choice. 

Among numberless extravagancies which have 
passed through the minds of men, we may 
justly reckon for one that notion of a secret 


* Sen. Du con. ad Hek 


58o REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

affection, independent of our reason, and superior 
to our reason, which we are supposed to have 
for our country; as if there were some physical 
virtue in every spot of ground, which neces¬ 
sarily produced this effect in every one horn 
ppon it; 

I ( , 

t • 

r—Amor patriae ratione yalentior omni:—* 

as if the heimweJi was an universal distemper, 
inseparable from the constitution of an human 
body, ancl not peculiar to the Swiss, who seem 
to have been made for their mountains, as 
their mountains seem to have been made for 
them.f This notion may have contributed to 
the security and grandeur of states: it has 
therefore been not unartfully cultivated, and 
the prejudice of education has been with care 
put on its side. Men have come in this case, 
as in many, from believing that it ought to 
be so, to persuade others and even to believe 
themselves that it is so. Procopius relates that 
Abgarus came to Rome, and gained the esteem 
and friendship of Augustus to such a degree, 
that this emperor could not resolve to let him 
return home; that Abgarus brought several 
beasts, which he had taken one day in h unting, 
alive to Augustus; that he placed in different 

* Ov. De ponto, El. ir. f Card. Benti. Let. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 58 i 

parts of the Circus some of the earth which 
belonged to the places where each of these 
animals had been caught; that as soon as this 
was done, and they were turned loose, every 
one of them ran to that corner where his earth 
lay; that Augustus, admiring the sentiment of 
love for their country which nature has graven 
in the hearts of beasts, and struck by the 
evidence of the truth, granted the request which 
'Abgarus immediately pressed upon him, and 
allowed, though with regret, the tetrarch to 
return to Edessa. But this tale deserves just 
as much credit as that which follows in the 
same place, of the letter of Abgarus to Jesus 
Christ, of our Saviour’s answer, and of the 
cure of Abgarus. There is nothing, surely, 
more groundless than the notion here advanced, 
-—nothing more absurd. We love the country 
in which we are born, because we receive 
particular benefits from it, and because we have 
particular obligations to it; which ties we may 
have to another country, as well as to that we 
are born in; to our country by election, as 
well as to our country by birth. In all other 

respects, a wise man looks on himself as a 

* 

citizen of the world, and, when you ask him 

where his country lies, points, like Anaxagoras, 

■ 

with his finger to the heavens. 

There are other persons, again, who have 
imagined that as the whole universe suffers a 


582 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

continual rotation, and nature seems to delight 
in it, or to preserve herself by it, so there is 
in the minds of men a natural restlessness, 
which inclines them to change of place and to 
the shifting their habitations.* This opinion 
has at least an appearance of truth which the 
oilier wants, and is countenanced, as the other 
is contradicted, by experience : but, whatever 
the reasons be, which must have varied infi¬ 
nitely in an infinite number of cases and an 
immense space of lime, true it is, in fact, that 
the families and nations of the world have been 
in a continual fluctuation, roaming about on the 
face of the globe, driving and driven out by 

turns. What a number of colonies has Asia 

\ 

sent into Europe ! The Plienicians planted the 
coasts of the Mediterranean sea, and pushed 
their settlements even into the ocean; the Etru¬ 
rians were of Asiatic extraction; and, to mention 
no more, the Romans, those lords of the world, 
acknowledged a Trojan exile for the founder 
of their empire. How many migrations have 
there been, in return to these, from Europe 
into Asia? — they would be endless to enume¬ 
rate ; for, besides the ^Eolic, the Ionic, and 
others of almost equal fame, the Greeks, during 
several ages, made continual expeditions, and 
built cities in several parts of Asia. The Gauls 


* Sen. De con. ad IleL 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 533 

penetrated thither too, and established a king¬ 
dom. The European Scythians overran these 
vast provinces, and carried their arms to the 
coniines of Egypt. Alexander subdued all from 
the Hellespont to India, and built towns and 
established colonies to secure his conquests 
and to eternise his name. From both these parts 
of the world Africa has received inhabitants 
and masters; and what she has received she has 
given. The Tyrians built the city and founded 
the republic of Carthage: the Greek has been 
the language of Egypt. In the remotest an¬ 
tiquity, we hear of Belus in Chaldaea and of 
Sesostris planting his tawny colonies in Colchos; 
and Spain has been, in these latter ages, under 
the dominion of Moors, If we turn to Runic 
history, we find our fathers, the Goths, led by 
.Woden and by Thor, their heroes first and their 
divinities afterwards, from the Asiatic Tartary 
into Europe: and who can assure us that this 
was their first migration? They came into Asia 
perhaps by the east, from that continent to which 
their sons have lately sailed from Europe by the 
west: and thus in the process of three or four 
thousand years, the same race of men have 
pushed their conquests and their habitations 
round the globe; at least this may be supposed 
as reasonably as it is supposed, I think by [Gro- 
tius, that America was peopled from Scandinavia. 
The world is a great wilderness, wherein man- 


584 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

kind have wandered and jostled one another 
about from the creation. Some have removed 
by necessity, and others by choice. One nation 
has been fond of seizing what another was tired 
of possessing: and it will be difficult to point 
out the country which is to this day in the 
hands of its first inhabitants. 

Thus fate has ordained that nothing shall 
remain long in the same stale: and what are 
all these transportations of people, but so many 
public exiles? Varro, the most learned of the 
Romans, thought, since Nature* is the same 
wherever we go, that this single circumstance 
was sufficient to remove all objections to change 
of place, taken by itself, and stripped of the other 

inconveniencies which attend exile. M. Brutus 

/ 

thought it enough that those, wdio go into 
banishment, cannot be hindered from carrying 
their virtue along with them. Now if any one 
judge that each of these comforts is in itself 
insufficient, he must however confess that both 
of them joined together, are able to remove the 
terrors of exile : for what trifles must all we 
leave behind us be esteemed, in comparison of 
the two most precious things which men can 
enjoy, and which we are sure will follow us 
wherever we turn our steps,—the same nature 
and our proper virtue ? f Believe me, the pro- 


f Sen. Be con. ad Ilel. f Ibid. 


I 


REDIRECTIONS UPON EXILE. 585 

vidence of God has established such an order 
in the world, that of all which belongs to ns 
the least valuable parts can alone fall under the 
will of others; whatever is best, is safest; lies 
out of the reach of human power; can neither 
be given nor taken away. Such is this great 
and beautiful work of nature, the world:—such 
is the mind of man, which contemplates and 
admires the world whereof it makes the noblest 
part. These are inseparably ours, and, as long 
as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. 
Let us march therefore intrepidly, wherever 
we are led by the course of human accidents. 
Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever 
we are thrown by them, we shall not find our¬ 
selves absolutely strangers : Ave shall meet with 
men and women, creatures of the same figure? 
endowed with the same faculties, and born under 
the same laws of nature ; we shall see the same 
virtues and vices, flowing from the same general 
principles, but varied in a thousand different 
and contrary modes, according to that infinite 
variety of laws and customs which is established 
for the same universal end, the preservation of 
society ; we shall feel the same revolution of 
.seasons, and the same sun and moon* will guide 

* Plut. On banishment. He compares those who cannot live 
out of their own country, to the simple people who fancied that 
the moon of Athens was a finer moon than that of Corinth. 

.-labenlem coelo ipue ducitis annum. Vir. Geor. 

C C 



386 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

the course of our year; the same azure vault, 
bespangled with stars, will be every where spread 
over opr heads. There is no part of the world 
from whence we may not admire those planets 
which roll, like ours, in different orbits round 
the same central sun ; from whence we may not 
discover an object still more stupendous, that 
army of fixed stars hung up in the immense 
space of the universe, innumerable suns whose 
beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds 
which roll around them; and whilst I am ra¬ 
vished by such contemplations as these, whilst 
my soul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports 
me little what ground I tread upon. 

Brutus,* in the book which he wrote on 
virtue, related that he had seen Marcell us in 
exile at Mitylene, living in all the happiness 
which human nature is capable of, and culti¬ 
vating with as much assiduity as ever all kinds 
of laudable knowledge: he added, that this 
spectacle made him think that it was rather he 
who went into banishment, since he was to re¬ 
turn without the other, than the other who 
remained in it. O Marcellus! far more happy 
when Brutus approved thy exile than when 
the commonwealth approved thy consulship 
how great a man must thou have been to extort 
admiration from him, who appeared an object of 


* Sen. De con. ad Hel. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. $87 

admiration even to his own Cato! The same 
Brutus reported further, that Csesar overshot 
Mitylene, because he could not stand the sight 
of Marcellus reduced to a state so unworthy of 
him. His restoration was at length obtained by 
the public intercession of the whole senate; who 
were dejected with grief to such a degree, that 
they seemed all upon this occasion to have the 
same sentiments with Brutus, and to be sup¬ 
pliants for themselves rather than for Marcel].us,* 
This was to return with honor: but surely he 
remained abroad with greater, when Brutus could 
not resolve to leave him nor Caesar to see him* 
for both of them bore witness of his merit. 
Brutus grieved and Caesar blushed to go to 
Borne without him. 

Q. Metellus Nuinidicus had undergone the 
same fate some years before, while the pcople 3 
who are always the surest instruments of their 
own servitude, were laying, under the conduct 
of Marius, the foundations of that tyranny which 
was perfected by Caesar. Metellus alone, in the 
midst of an intimidated senate and outrageous 
multitude, refused to swear to the pernicious 
laws of the tribune Sat urn in us : his constancy 
became his crime, and exile his punishment. A 

* Marcellus was assassinated at Athens, in Ins return home, 
by Chilo, an old friend and fellow-soldier of his. The motive- 
of Ghilo is not explained in history. Caesar was suspected, 
but he seems to be justified by the opinion of Erutus. 

cca 




588 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

wild and lawless faction prevailing against hint, 
tlie best men of the city armed in liis defence, 
and were ready to lay down tlieir lives that they 
might preserve so much virtue to their country* 
but he, having failed to persuade, thought it 
not lawful to constrain. He judged in the 
frensy of the Roman commonwealth, as Plato 
judged in the dotage of the Athenian. Metellus 
knew, that, if his fellow-citizens amended, he 
should be recalled; and if they did not amend, 
he thought he could be no where worse than 
at Rome: he went voluntarily into exile; and, 
wherever he passed, he carried the sure symptom 
of a sickly state, and the certain prognostic of 
an expiring commonwealth. What temper he 
continued in abroad will best appear by a frag¬ 
ment of one of his letters, which Gellius,* in 
a pedantic compilation of phrases used by the 
annalist Q. Claudius, has preserved for the sake 
of the word fruniscor. u llli vero omni jure atque 
honestate interdicti y ego neque aqua neque igne 
careo y et summa gloria fruniscor Happy Me¬ 
tellus !—happy in the conscience of thy own 
virtue !—happy in tliy pious son, and in that 
excellent friend who resembled thee in merit 
and in fortune ! 

Rutilius had defended Asia against the extor¬ 
tions of the publicans, according to the strict 


* Lib. xvij. c?p. 2. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 58q 

justice of which he made profession, and to the 
particular duty ol his office. The equestrian 
order were, upon this account, his enemies; and 
tlie Marian faction was so of course, on account 
of his probity, as well as out of hatred to Me- 
tellus : the most innocent man of the city was 
accused of corruption,—the best man was pro¬ 
secuted by the worst,—by Apicius, a name de¬ 
dicated to infamy ;* those who had stirred up 
the false accusation, sat as judges, and pro¬ 
nounced the unjust sentence against him. He 
hardly deigned to defend his cause, hut retired 
into the East; where that Roman virtue, which 
Rome could not bear, was received with honor.f 
Shall Rutilius now be deemed unhappy, when 
they who condemned him are, for that action, 
delivered down as criminals to all future ge¬ 
nerations? when he quitted his country with 
greater ease than he would suffer his exile to 
finish? when he alone durst refuse the dictator 
Sylla; and, being recalled home, not only de¬ 
clined to go, but fled farther off? 

What do you propose, it may be said, by 
these examples; multitudes of which are to bo 
collected from the memorials of former ages? 

I propose to show that as change of place, simply 

/ 

* There was another Apicius, in the reign of Tiberius, 
famous for his gluttony; and a third in the time of Trajan. 

■ . i • , ' • J 

f Sen. L. Re prov. cap. 3. 









REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 


5go 


considered, can render no man unhappy; so tlie 
other evils which are objected to exile, either 
cannot happen to wise and virtuous men, or, 
if they do happen to them, cannot render them 
miserable. Stones are hard, and cakes of ice are 
cold, and all who feel them, feel them alike :* 
hut the good or the had events, which fortune 
brings upon us, are felt according to what qua¬ 
lities we, not they, have; they are in them¬ 
selves indifferent and common accidents, and 
they acquire strength by nothing hut our vice 
or our weakness. Fortune can dispense neither 
felicity nor infelicity, unless we co-operate with 
her. Few men, who are unhappy under the loss 
of an estate, would be happy in the possession 
of it; and those, who deserve to enjoy the ad¬ 
vantages which exile takes away, will not be 
unhappy when they are deprived of them. 

It grieves me to make an exception to this 
rule; but Tully was one so remarkably, that the 
example can be neither concealed nor passed 
over. This great man,—who had been the sa¬ 
viour of his country; who had feared, in the 
support of that cause, neither the insults of a 
desperate party nor the daggers of assassins— 
when he came to suffer for the same cause, sunk 
under the weight; he dishonored that banish¬ 
ment which indulgent Providence meant to be 


* Plat. On exile. 














REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 5gi 

the means of rendering his glory complete. 
Uncertain where he should go or what he 
should do, fearful as a woman and fro ward as 
a child, he lamented the loss of his rank, of his 
riches, and of his splendid popularity. His elo¬ 
quence served only to paint his ignominy in 
stronger colors: he wept over the ruins of his 
line house, which Clodius had demolished; and 
his separation from Terentia, whom he repu¬ 
diated not long afterwards, was perhaps an afflic¬ 
tion to him at this time. Every thing becomes 
intolerable to the man who is once subdued by 
grief :* he regrets what he took no pleasure 
in enjoying; and, overloaded already, he shrinks 
at the weight of a feather. Cicero’s behaviour 
in short, was such, that his friends as well as 
his enemies believed him to have lost his 
senses, f Caesar beheld, with a secret satisfaction, 
the man, who had refused to be his lieutenant, 
weeping under the rod of Clodius: Pompey 
hoped to find some excuse for his own ingra¬ 
titude in the contempt which the friend, whom 
he had abandoned, exposed himself to: nay, 
Atticus judged him too meanly attached to his 
former fortune, and reproached him for it;— 

* Mitto caetera intolerabilia eteniin flelu impedior.—L. iij 
ad Attic, ep. 10. 

f Tam sa?pe> ct tam valiementer objurgas, et animo iiilinuo 
esse die is. lbicl. 


I 


REFLECTIONS UFON EXILE. 


592 

Atticus, whose great talents were usury and 
trimming; who placed his principal merit in 
being rich; and who would have been noted 
with infamy at Athens, for keeping well with 
all sides and venturing on none,*—even At¬ 
ticus blushed for Tally, and the most plausible 
man alive assumed the style of Cato. 

I have dwelt the longer on this instance, 
because, whilst it takes nothing from the truth 
which has been established, it teaches us another 
of great importance. Wise men are certainly 
superior to all the evils of exile; but, in a strict 
sense, he. who has left any one passion in his 
soul unsubdued, will not deserve that appellation. 
It is not enough that we have studied all the 
duties of public and private life, that we are 
perfectly acquainted with them, and that we 
live up to them in the eye of the world: a 
passion that lies dormant in the heart, and has 
escaped our scrutiny, or which we have observed 
and indulged as venial; or which we have perhaps 
encouraged, as a principle to excite and to aid 
our virtue;may, one time or other, destroy 
our tranquillity and disgrace our whole character. 
When virtue has steeled the mind on every 
side, we are invulnerable on every side: but— 
Achilles was wounded in the heel. The least 
part, overlooked or neglected, may expose? us te 

* Pint. Vit. Solonf 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. OCJO 

receive a mortal blow. Reason cannot obtain 
tlie absolute dominion of our souls by one 
victory; vice lias many reserves which must 
be beaten,—many strong holds which must be 
forced; and we may be found of proof in many 
trials, without being so in all; we may resist 
the severest, and yield to the weakest attacks 
of fortune ;—we may have got the better of 
avarice, the most epidemical disease of the mind, 
and yet be slaves to ambition ;*•—we may have 
purged our souls of the fear of death, and yet 
some other fear may venture to lurk behind: 
this was the case of Cicero; vanity was his 
cardinal vice; f it had, I question not, warmed 
his zeal, quickened his industry, animated the 
love of his country, and supported his constancy 
against Catiline; but it gave to Clodius an entire 

* Seneca says the contrary of all this, according to the 
Stoical system; which, however, he departs from on many 
occasions. 11 Si contra unara quamlibet partem fortunae satis 
tibi roboris est, idem adversus omnes erit.—Si avaritia dimisit, 
vehementissima generis humani pestis, moram tibi ambitio 
non faciet. Si ultimum cliem,” etc. De con. ad Ilel. 

u Non singula vitia ratio, sed pariter omnia prosternit. In 
universum semel vincitur.” Ibid. 

“ Nec audacem quidem timoris absolvimus; ne prodigum 
qoidem avaritia liberamus.” De Benef. Liv iv. c. 27. 

11 Qui autem liabet vitium uzium, habet omnia.” Ibid. L. v. 
c. 1 5 . 

f u In animo autem gloriae cupido, qualis fuit Clceronis, 
jdiipinumi poLest.” Yel. £at. L, i. 


%4 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

victory over him. He was not afraid to die, 
an dp art with estate, rank, honor, and every 
thing which he lamented the loss of: but he 
was afraid to live deprived of them;—“ Ut vivus 
hose amiitereni * He would probably have 
met death on this occasion with the same firmness 
with which he said to Popilius Laenus, his 
client and his murderer, u Approach, veteran! 
and, if at least thou carist do this well., cut off 
my head. ’’ But he could not bear to see himself, 
and to be seen by others, stripped of those 
trappings which he was accustomed to wear: 
this made him break out into so many shameful 
expressions. “ . Possum oblivisci qui fuerim ? 
non sentire qui sim ? quo caream honore , qua 
glorial ” and, speaking of his brother—“ Vitavi 
ne viderem\ ne aut illius luctum squaloremque 
aspiccrem, aut T%ie y quern ille Jlorentissimum 
reliquerat, perdition illi afjlictumque ojferrem. ” 
He had thought of death, and prepared his mind 
for it ; there were occasions, too, where his 
vanity might be flattered by it: but the same 
vanity hindered him, in his prosperous estate, 
from supposing such a reverse as afterwards 
happened to him. When it came, it found him 
unprepared, it surprises! him, it stunned him; 
for he was still fond of the pomp and hurry of 

* Ep. ad Attic. L. iij. ep. 3 , 7, 10, et passim. 

L. iij ep. 10. ;ad Attic. 

7: ' ; . . ' 1 A 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 


5g5 

Home, “ fumum et opes, strepitumque Romm, 
and unweaned from all those things which habit 
renders necessary and which nature has left 
indifferent. 

We have enumerated them above, and it is time 
to descend into a more particular examination 
of them. Change of place, then, may be borne by 
every man ; it is the delight of many: but who 
can bear the evils which accompany exile? You 
who ask the question can bear them,—every one 
who considers them as they are in themselves, 
instead oflookingat them through the false optic 
which prejudice holds before our eyes. For 
what? you have lost your estate: reduce your 
desires, and you will perceive yourself to be as 
rich as ever,—with this considerable advantage 
to boot, that your cares will be diminished. 
Our natural and real wants * are confined to 
narrow bounds, whilst those which fancy and 
custom create are confined to none. Truth lies 
within a little and certain compass, but error 
is immense. If we suffer our desires, therefore, 
to wander beyond these bounds, they wander 

* Naturalia desideria finita sunt: ex falsa opinione nascen- 
tia ubi definant non habent, nullus enim terminus falso est. 
—Sen. Ep. id. 

Excerp. ex Lib. Sen.—falsely so called. 

Si adnaturam vires, nunquam eris pauper—si ad opinionem, 
nunquam dives. Exiguum natura desiderat, opinio immen- 
sum.—Sen. Ep. 16. 


596 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

eternally. u Nescio quid curtce semper abesf 
rei . ” We become necessitous in the midst of 
plenty, and our poverty increases with our riches* 
Reduce your desires- be able to say with the 
apostle of Greece, to whom Erasmus was ready 
to address his prayers, u quam multis ipse non 
egeo /” banish out of your exile all imaginary, 
and you will suffer no real wants: the little 
stream which is left will suffice to quench the 
thirst of nature; and that, which cannot be 
quenched by it, is not your thirst but your 
distemper-—a distemper formed by the vicious 
habits of your mind, and not the elfect of exile. 
How great a part of mankind bear poverty with 
cheerfulness, because they have been bred in 
it and are accustomed to it?* Shall we not be 
able to acquire, by reason and by reflection, 
what the meanest artisan possesses by habit?— 
shall those, who have so many advantages over 
him, be slaves to wants and necessities of which 
he is ignorant? The rich, whose wanton ap¬ 
petites neither the produce of one country, nor 
of one part of the world can satisfy, for whom 
the whole habitable globe is ransacked, for whom 
the caravans of the east are continually in march? 
and the remotest seas are covered with ships- 
these pampered creatures, sated with superfluity? 
are often glad to inhabit an humble cot, and 


* Sen. De con. ad IIel. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 5gj 

to make an homely meal; they run for refuge 
into the arms of frugality:—madmen that they 
are, to live always in fear of what they sometimes 
wish for, and to fly from that life which they 
find it luxury to imitate! Let us cast our eyes 
backwards on those great men who lived in 
the ages of virtue, of simplicity, of frugality; 
and let us blush to think that we enjoy in 
banishment more than they were masters of in 
the midst of their glory,—in the utmost affluence 
of their fortune. Let us imagine that we behold 
a great dictator giving audience to the Samnite 
ambassadors, and preparing on the hearth his 
mean repast with the same hand which had so 
often subdued the enemies of the commonwealth, 
and borne the triumphal laurel to the capitol. 
Let us remember that Plato had but* three 
servants, and that Zeno had none, •j' Socrates, 

* Plato’s will, in Diog. Laer. mentions four servants besides 
Diana, to whom lie gave her freedom. 

Apuleius makes liis estate consist in a little garden near 
tiie academy, two servants, a patten for sacrifices, and as 
much gold as would serve to make earrings for a child. 

j- Zeno was owner of a thousand talents when he came 
from Cyprus into Greece, and he used to lend liis money out 
upon ships at an high interest; lie kept, in short, a kind of in¬ 
surance office. He had lost this estate perhaps when lie said, 
u rect'e sane et git for tuna y quee nos.ad philosophiam impellit 
Afterwards lie received many and great presents from Anti* 
gonus: so that his great frugality and simplicity of life were the 
effects of his choice and not of necessity. Yid. Diog. Laer. 


«* g , ^ 

0Cj8 BEFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

4 

the reformer of his country, was maintained, ad 
Menenius Agrippa, the arbiter of his country was 
buried, by a contribution.* While Artilius 
Regulus beat the Carthaginians in Afric, the 
flight of his ploughman reduced his family to 
distress at home, and the tillage of his little farm 
became the public care. Scipio died without 
leaving enough to marry his daughters, and their 
portions were paid out of the treasury of the 
state; for sure it was just that the people of Rome 
should once pay tribute to him, who had esta¬ 
blished a perpetual tribute on Carthage. After 
such examples, shall we be afraid of poverty? 
shall we disdain to be adopted into a family which 
has so many illustrious ancestors? shall we com¬ 
plain of banishment for taking from us what the 
greatest philosophers and the greatest heroes of 
antiquity never enjoyed? 

You will find fault, perhaps, and attribute to 
artifice, that I consider singly misfortunes which 
come altogether on the banished man, and over¬ 
bear him with their united weight. You could 
support change of place if it was not accompanied 
with poverty, or poverty if it was not accom¬ 
panied with the separation from your family and 

* Diog. Laer. Vit. Soc. quotes Aristoxenus for affirming 
that Socrates used to keep a box, and lived upon the money 
which was put into it : u Posita igitur arcula colligisse pecu - 
iiiam quae daretur; consumpta autem ea, rursus posuin'se 


REFLECTIONS UPON tXILE. 



\ our friends, with llie loss of your rank, consi¬ 
deration, and power, with contempt and ignoini- 
ny. W hoever he be who reasons in this manner, 
let him take the following answer : the least of 
these circumstances is singly sufficient to render 
the man miserable who is not prepared for it, 
who has not divested himself of that passion upon, 
which it is directed to work: but he, who has got 
the mastery of all his passions, who has foreseen 
all these accidents and prepared his mind to 
endure them all, will be superior to all of them, 
and to all of them at once as well as singly: he 
will not bear the loss ol his rank, because he caii 
bear the loss of his estate; but he will bear both, 
because he is prepared for boili,—because he is 
free from pride as much as he is from avarice. 

You are separated from your family and your 
friends! Take the list of them, and look it well 
over: how few of your family will you find 
who deserve the name of friends? and how few 
among these who are really such? Erase the 
names of such as ought not to stand on the 
roll, and the voluminous catalogue will soon 
dwindle into a narrow compass. Regret, if you. 
please, your separation from this small remnant; 
—far be it from me, whilst I declaim against a 
L shameful and vicious weakness of mind, to pre- 
! scribe the sentiments of a virtuous friendship; 
—regret your separation from your friends, but 
regret it like a man who deserves to be theirs: 






4oo REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

this is strength, not Weakness oi. mind,—it is 
virtue, not vice. 

But the least uneasiness, under the doss of the 
rank which we held, is ignominious. There 
is no valuable rank among men hut that which 
real merit assigns: the princes of the earth may 
give names, and institute ceremonies, and exact 
the observation of them • their imbecility and 
their wickedness may prompt them to clothe 
fools and knaves with robes of honor and 
emblems of wisdom and virtue; but no man 
will be in truth superior to another without 
superior merit, and that rank can no more be 
taken from us than the merit which establishes 
it. The supreme authority gives a fictitious and 
arbitrary value to coin, which is therefore not 
current alike in all times and in all places, but 
the real value remains invariable; and the pro¬ 
vident man, who gets rid as fast as he can of 
the drossy piece, hoards up the good silver. 
Thus merit will not procure the same consi¬ 
deration universally: but what then? the title 
to this consideration is the same, and will be 
found alike, in every circumstance by those 
who are wise and virtuous themselves; if it 
is not owned by such as are otherwise, nothing 
is however taken from us—we have no reason 
to complain: they considered us for a rank 
which we had,—for our denomination, not for 
our intrinsic value; we have that rank, that 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 4oi 

denomination no longer, and they consider us 
no longer: they admired in us what we admired 
not in ourselves; if they learn to neglect us, 
let us learn to pity them ; their assiduity was 
importunate; let us not complain of the ease 
which this change procures us; let us rather 
apprehend the return of that rank and that power, 
which, like a sunny day, would bring back 
these little insects, and make them swarm once 
more about us. I know how apt we are, under 
specious pretences, to disguise our weaknesses 
and our vices, and how often we succeed, not 
only in deceiving the world, but even in de¬ 
ceiving ourselves. An inclination to do good 
is inseparable from a virtuous mind; and there¬ 
fore the man, who cannot bear with patience 
the loss of that rank and power which he en¬ 
joyed, may be willing to attribute his regrets 
to the impossibility which he supposes himself 
reduced to of satisfying this inclination : but 
let such an one know that a wise man contents 
himself with doing as much good as his situ¬ 
ation allows him to do; that there is no situa¬ 
tion wherein we may not do a great deal; and 
that when we are deprived of greater power to 
do more good, we escape at the same time the 
temptation of doing some evil. * 

The inconveniencies, which we have men- 

* Sen. De eon. ad Hel. 

Dd 


4o2 reflections ufon exile. 

tioned, carry nothing along with them difficult 
to be borne by a wise and virtuous man; and 
those which remain to be mentioned, contempt 
and ignominy, can never fall to his lot. It is 
impossible that he who reverences himself should 
be despised by others; and how can ignominy 
affect the man who collects all his strength 
within himself, who appeals from the judgment 
of the multitude to another tribunal, and lives 
independent of mankind and of the accidents 
of life? Cato lost the election of praetor, and 
that of consul; but is any one blind enough to 
truth to imagine that these repulses reflected 
any disgrace on him? The dignity of those 
two magistracies would have been increased by 
his wearing them;—they suffered, not Cato. 

You have fulfilled all the duties of a good 
citizen; you have been true to your trust, constant 
in your engagements, and have pursued the 
interest of your country without regard to the 
enemies you created and the dangers you ran : 
you severed her interest, as much as lay in your 
power, from those of her factions; and from those 
of her neighbours and allies too, when they 
became different; she reaps the benefit of these 
services, and you suffer for them: you are 
banished, and pursued with ignominy; and those 
whom you hindered from triumphing at her 
expense, revenge themselves at yours, [the per¬ 
sons, i^i opposition to whom you served or even 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 4o5 

# 

saved the public, conspire and accomplish your 
private ruin; these are your accusers, and the 
giddy ungrateful crowd your judges: your name 
is hung up in the tables of proscription, and art 
joined to malice endeavours to make your best 
actions pass for crimes and to stain your character: 
for this purpose the sacred voice of the senate is 
made to pronounce a lie; and those records, 
which ought to be the eternal monuments of 
truth, become the vouchers of imposture and 
calumny. Such circumstances as these, you think 
intolerable, and you would prefer death to so 
ignominious an exile. Deceive not yourself: 
the ignominy remains with them who persecute 
unjustly, not with him who suffers unjust per¬ 
secution .—“ Recalcitrcit undique tutus? Suppose 
that in the act which banishes you, it was declared 
that you have some contagious distemper, — 
that you are crooked or otherwise deformed ; 
this would render the legislators ridiculous;* 
the other renders them infamous: but neither 
one nor the other can affect the man, who, in an 
healthful well-proportioned body, enjoys a con¬ 
science void of all the offences ascribed to him. 
Instead of such an exile, would'you compound, 
that you might live at home in ease and plenty, 
to be the instrument of blending these contrary 
interests once more together, and of giving but 

* The dialogue between Cicero and Philiscus.—Dion. Cas, 
L. xxxviij. 


d d a 


4o4 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

the third place to that of your country?—would 
you prostitute her power to the ambition of 
others, under the pretence of securing her from 
imaginary dangers; and drain her riches into the 
pockets of the meanest and vilest of her citizens, 
under the pretence of paying her debts? If you 
could submit to so infamous a composition, you 
are not the man to whom I address my discourse, 
or with whom I will have any commerce ; and if 
you have virtue enough to disdain it, why should 
you repine at the other alternative ? Banishment, 
from such a country and with such circumstances, 
is like being delivered from prison. Diogenes 
was driven out of the kingdom of Pontus for 
counterfeiting the coin, and Stratonicus thought 
that forgery might be committed in order to get 
banished from Scriphos; but you have obtained 
your liberty by doing your duty. 

Banishment, with all its train of evils, is so far 
from being the cause of contempt, that he who 
bears up with an undaunted spirit against them, 
while so many are dejected by them, erects on his 
very misfortunes a trophy to his honor: for 
such is the frame and temper of our minds, that 
nothing strikes us with greater admiration than a 
man intrepid in the midst of misfortunes. Of all 
ignominies, an ignominious death must be allowed 
to be the greatest; and yet where is the blasphemer 
who will presume to defame the death of Socrates?* 

* Sen. De con. ad Hel. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 4o5 

This saint entered the prison with the same 
countenance with which he reduced thirty tyrants,, 
and he took off ignominy from the place; for 
how could it be deemed a prison, when Socrates 
was there? Phocion was led to execution in the 
same city; all those who met the sad procession 
cast their eyes to the ground, and with throbbing 
hearts bewailed, not the innocent man, but justice 
herself, who was in him condemned: yet there 
was a wretch found, for monsters are sometimes 
produced in contradiction to the ordinary rules 
of nature, who spat in his face as he passed along; 
Phocion wiped his cheek, smiled, turned to the 
magistrate, and said, “Admonish this man not to 
be so nasty for the future.” 

Ignominy, then, can lake no hold on virtue;* 
for virtue is in every condition the same, and 
challenges the same respect. We applaud the 
world when she prospers; and when she falls 
into adversity we applaud her: like the temples 
of the Gods, she is venerable even in her ruins. 
After this, must it not appear a degree of madness 
to defer one moment acquiring the only arms 
capable of defending us against attacks which 
at every moment we are exposed to? Our being 
miserable, or not miserable, when we fall into 
misfortunes depends on the manner in which 
we have enjoyed prosperity. If we have ap- 


'* S*». De con. ad Hcb 


4o 6 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

plied ourselves by times to the study of wisdom 
and to the practice of virtue, these evils become 
indifferent; but if we have neglected to do so, 
they become necessary: in one case they are 
evils; in the other, they are remedies for greater 
evils than themselves. Zeno * rejoiced that a 
shipwreck had thrown him on the Athenian 
coast; and he owed to the loss of his fortune 
the acquisition which he made of virtue, of 
wisdom, of immortality. There are good and 
bad airs for the mind, as weil as for the body: 
prosperity often irritates our chronical dis¬ 
tempers, and leaves no hopes of finding any 
specific but in adversity: in such cases, banish¬ 
ment is like change of air; and the evils we 
suffer are like rough medicines applied to in¬ 
veterate diseases. What f Anacharsis said of 
the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity: 
she bears the three grapes of drunkenness, of 
pleasure, and of sorrow; and happy it is if the 
last can cure the mischief which the former 
work. When afflictions fail to have their due 
effect, the case is desperate: they are the last 
remedies which indulgent Providence uses; and 
if they fail, we must languish and die in misery 
and contempt. Vain men! how seldom do we 
know what to wish or to pray for? When we 
pray against misfortunes, and when we fear 

/ 

t Serr 


* Diog. Laer. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 4o7 

tliem most, we want them most :—it was fop 
this reason that Pythagoras forbade his disciples 
to ask any thing in particular of God : the 
shortest and the best prayer which we can 
address to him, who knows our wants and 
our ignorance in asking, is this,—“ Thy will 
be done ! 55 

Tully says, in some part of his works, that 
as happiness is the object of all philosophy, 
so the disputes among philosophers arise from 
their different notions of the sovereign good; 
reconcile them in that point, you reconcile 
them in the rest. The school of Zeno placed 
this sovereign good in naked virtue, and wound 
the principle up to an extreme beyond the 
pitch of nature and truth: — a spirit of op¬ 
position to another doctrine, which grew into 
great vogue while Zeno flourished, might occa¬ 
sion this excess. Epicurus placed the sovereign 
good in pleasure: his terms were wilfully or 
accidently mistaken:, his scholars might help 
to prevent his doctrine, but rivalship inflamed 
the dispute; for in truth there is not so much 
difference between stoicism reduced to reasonable 
intelligible terms, and genuine orthodox epi¬ 
curism, as is imagined:-—the felicis animi im - 
7 nota tranquil litas and the voluptas of the latter 
are near enough a—kin; and 1 much doubt 
whether the firmest hero of the Portique would 
have borne a fit of the stone, oil the principle 


4o8 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

of Zeno, with greater magnanimity and patience 
than Epicurus did on those of his own phi¬ 
losophy. * However, Aristotle took a middle 
way, or explained himself better, and placed 
happiness in the joint advantages of the mind, 
the body, and of fortune. They are reasonably 
joined; but certain it is, that they must not be 
placed on an equal foot: we can much better 
bear the privation of the last, than of the others; 
and poverty itself, which mankind is so afraid 
of, “ pet' mare pauperiem ftigiens , per sax a, 
per ignesj ” is surely preferable to madness 
or the stone; though f Chrysippus thought it 
better to live mad, than not to live. If banish¬ 
ment, therefore, by taking from us the advantages 
of fortune, cannot take from us the more valuable 
advantages of the mind and body, when we 
have them; and if the same accident is able 
to restore them to us, when we have lost them; 
banishment is a very slight misfortune to those 
who are already under the dominion of reason, 
and a very great blessing to those who are 
still plunged in vices which ruin the health 

® • i • * > 

* Compare the representations made so frequently of tlie 
doctrine of voluply taught by Epicurus, with the account 
which he himself gives in his letter to Menoeceus, of the sense 
wherein he understood this word.—Yid. Dio". Laer. 

o 

+ In his third hook of Nature, cited by Plutarch, in the 
treatise on the contradictions of the Stoics. 


REFLECTIONS ETON EXILE. 40() 

both of body and mind:—it is to be wished 
for in favor of such as these, and to be feared 
by none. If we are in this case, let us second 
the designs of Providence in our favor, and 
make some amends for neglecting former op¬ 
portunities by not letting slip the last. “ Si 
720 lis scirucs, curi'es hyclropicus . ” We may 
shorten the evils which we might have pre¬ 
vented ; and as we get the better of our disorderly 
passions and vicious habits, we shall feel our 
anxiety diminish in proportion. All the ap¬ 
proaches to virtue are comfortable. With how 
much joy will the man, who improves his mis¬ 
fortunes in this manner, discover that those 
evils, which he attributed to his exile, sprung 
from his vanity and folly, and vanish with 
them!—he will see that, in his former temper 
of mind, he resembled the effeminate prince 
who could drink no * water but that of the 
river Choaspes; or the simple queen, in one of 
the tragedies of Euripides, who complained bit¬ 
terly that she had not lighted the nuptial torch, 
and that the river Ismenus had not furnished 
the water at her son’s wedding. Seeing his 
former state in this ridiculous light, he will 
labor on with pleasure towards another as 
contrary as possible to it; and when he arrives 
there, he will be convinced by the strongest of 


* Hut. On banishment. 


4ig reflections upon exile. 

all proofs, his own experience, that he was 
unfortunate because he was vicious,—not because 
he was banished. 

If I was not afraid of being thought to refine 
too much, I would venture to put some ad¬ 
vantages of fortune, which are due to exile, into 
the scale against those which we lose by exile: 
—one there is which has been neglected even 
by great and wise men. Demetrius Phalereus, 
after his expulsion from Athens, became first 
minister to the king of Egypt; and Themistocles 
found such a reception at the court of Persia, 
that he used to say his fortune had been lost 
if he had not been ruined: but Demetrius ex¬ 
posed himself, by his favor under the first 
Ptolemy, to a new disgrace under the second; 
and Themistocles, who had been the captain 
of a free people, became the vassal of the prince 
he had conquered. How much better is it to 
take hold of the proper advantage of exile, and 
to live for ourselves, when we are under no 
obligation of living for others? Similis, a captain 
of great reputation under Trajan and Adrian, 
having obtained leave to retire, passed seven 
years in his retreat; and then dying, ordered this 
inscription to be put on his tomb,—that he had 
been many years on earth, but that he had lived 
only seven. * If you are wise, your leisure 


* Xipbil. 




REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 4l 1 

will be worthily employed, and your retreat 
will add new lustre to your character. Imi¬ 
tate Thucydides in Thracia, or Xenophon in 
his little farm at Scillus: in such a retreat 
you may sit down, like one of the inhabitants 
of Elis, who judged of the Olympic games 
without taking any part in them. Far from 
the hurry of the world, and almost an un¬ 
concerned spectator of what passes in it, having 
paid in a public life what you owed to the present 
age, pay in a private life what you owe to 
posterity: write, as you live, without passion; 
and, build your reputation, as you build your , 
happiness, on the foundations of truth: if 
you want the talents, the inclination, or the 
necessary materials for such a work, fall not 
however into sloth: endeavour to copy after 
the example of Scipio, at Linternum;—be able 
to say to yourself, 

* i 

Innocuas amo delicias doctamque quiet em. 

Rural amusements and philosophical medita¬ 
tions will make your hours glide smoothly on; 
and if the indulgence of Heaven has given you a 
friend like Laelius, nothing is wanting to make 
you completely happy. 

These are some of those reflections which may 
serve to fortify the mind under banishment, and 
under other misfortunes of life, which it is every 


4l 2 REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 

man’s inLerest to prepare for, because they are 
common to all men. * I say they are common to 
all men; because they who even escape them are 
equally exposed to them : the darts of adverse 
fortune are always levelled at our heads; some 
reach us, some graze against us, and fly to wound 
our neighbours: let us, therefore, impose an equal 
temper on our minds, and pay without murmur¬ 
ing the tribute which we owe to humanity. 
The winter brings cold, and we must freeze ; the 
summer returns with heat, and we must melt; 
the inclemency of the air disorders our health, 
• * and we must be sick: here we are exposed to 
wild beasts, and there to men more savage than 
the beasts; and if we escape the inconveniences 
and dangers of the air and the earth, there are 
perils by water and perils by fire. This esta¬ 
blished course of things it is not in our power 
to change; but it is in our power to assume such 
a greatness of mind as becomes wise and virtuous 
men,—as may enable us to encounter the accidents 
of life with fortitude, and to conform ourselves 
to the order of nature, who governs her great 
kingdom, the world, by continual mutations. Let 
us submit to this order; let us be persuaded, that 
whatever does happen ought to happen; and never 
be so foolish as to expostulate with nature. The 
best resolution we can take is to suffer what we 


* Sen. Fp. iG7. 


REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. 415 

cannot alter, and to pursue without repining the 
road which Providence, who directs every thing, 
lias marked out to us : for it is not enough to 
follow; and he is but a bad soldier who sighs, and 
marches on with reluctancy. We must receive 
the orders with spirit and cheerfulness; and not 
endeavour to slink out of the post which is 
assigned to us in this beautiful disposition of 
things, whereof even our sufferings make a 
necessary part. Let us address ourselves to God, 
who governs all, as Cleanthes did in those 
admirable verses, which are going to lose part 
of their grace and energy in my translation of 
them:— 

Parent of Nature !—Master of the World! 

Where’er thy Providence directs, behold 
My steps with cheerful resignation turn ! 

Fate leads the willing—drags the backward on! 

Why should I grieve?—when, grieving, I must bear;— 
Or take with guilt, what guiltless I might share ? 

Thus let us speak, and thus let us act! Resignation 
to the will of God is true magnanimity; but 
the sure mark of a pusillanimous and base 
spirit, is to struggle against—to censure the order 
of Providence, and, instead of mending our 
own conduct, to set up for correcting that of 
our Maker! 










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